Pyong Yang, Korea
January 22, 1913
Sallie W. Swallen
(Mrs. W.L.)
[Dear Friends:]
I thought I was busy before furlough, two years ago, but never did work pile up as it has
since I came back, and that blessed promise has been verified to me “As thy days, so shall thy
strength be.”
It took all December to get over the cold I caught at the November class. I got too tired,
and always contract a cold when so tired out. I had a dreadful cough for several weeks, but by
Christmas was almost myself again, so have been making good this month. Besides my regular
work in our South Gate Church, I have had to keep up with the country classes, praying for them,
seeing that the teachers from the city got off and the classes were all supplied with teachers. I
have taught one hour each day in the Women’s Academy, the Junior class of twenty young
women. I wish you could see them and hear them recite. They committed to memory a good
part of John. One of the best students is a hunch-back, another a blind girl from the Methodist
school for the Blind.
I had a Bible class for six days in South Gate Church: forty-four women and girls studied
regularly. I know some of them did receive a blessing. They want another class in February.
Nine years ago the South Gate (or Second) Church was organized. The territory all around it was
then full of Koreans, in a rich valley. The church grew rapidly until the first River Valley church
was set apart. Two years ago it was thought best to send off another congregation, and the new
church was given in charge of Mr. Phillips. The Japanese are buying out the Koreans and
coming nearer and nearer to the church. Last spring fourteen families moved out, which was a
hard blow to the church.
In our South Gate territory there have been great changes. Our church is surrounded by
the Japanese. I have to go over a mile to the church, and nearly always walk. Since the first of
the year the Session has had the men meet at nine for Sabbath school and the women and girls at
eleven o’clock, and asked me to take charge of the latter. I have fourteen classes.
The Men’s Winter Bible Class is now being held. The Bible Institute began two months
ago and will close when this class closes. There will be eight or nine hundred men altogether.
We began Monday to entertain the men from the Western Circuit in our home. Mr. Swallen
began with the Bible Institute men first. While I was teaching my class, Kim an Pungsunie took
all the tables, stands and chairs from the dining and sitting rooms, spreading down extra rugs
over the bare places. When I came home I found Mr. Swallen in the midst of fifty-four men
entertaining them the best he could. He said: “Hurry, come and play”, so I got to the piano as
quickly as possible, played hymns and sang. Then I would play and have them guess the tune,
which they did very well. Mr. Swallen told them a story which he heard in Palestine, we showed
views of Palestine which interested them. The refreshments consisted of cookies, apples and tea.
You know an Oriental shows how he is enjoying food by the smacking of his lips and the noise
he makes while eating. Think of fifty-four men all at once trying to show their appreciation of
the “feast” as they call it.
Next day the men of the class from the Northern Section were invited. Again the house
was made ready. This time one hundred came. When I reached home, Mr. Swallen was almost
in despair how to entertain them. I hurried to his rescue, we played and sang several hymns. The
1/22/1913 - p.2 S.W.S.
cook ran to the neighbors to borrow more bowls to serve the tea in. The Secretary came in and
helped serve, so everything passed off smoothly and they went away happy.
This afternoon we had the Southern Section come, numbering seventy. They too went
away happy that their Pastor had invited them into his home. As soon as they were gone the
doors were all thrown open and there was a thorough cleaning. We went to our community
prayer-meeting while this was going on, and came home to find the house all in order and our
dinner ready.
These three afternoons trying to entertain 224 men after the strenuous day’s work brought
to our minds more vividly our longing for a Victrola. As 1 think of the classes and institutions of
learning we have here in Pyong Yang, and the many hundreds of people we come in contact with
each year, 1 am more and more convinced we must have ways and means of entertaining these
whom we invite to our home. The Koreans are exceedingly fond of music: about the first book
they buy after they are Christians is a hymn book.
[Yours in the Master’s Service,
(Mrs. W.L.) Sallie Swallen]
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Korea missionary letters and papers)
Seoul, Korea
February 12, 1913
Samuel Austin Moffett
Mr. George Kennan
Care “The Outlook”, New York
Dear Mr. Kennan:
1 do not know that you wish to spend time in reading clippings upon the Korean situation,
but since reading your article in The Outlook [September 14, 1912] 1 have wished that you might
have a fuller knowledge of events in Korea.
After the great service you rendered in exposing injustice in Russia and Siberia 1 am sure
you would not willingly lend your influence to the perpetuation of injustice in Japan and Korea
or anywhere else.
1 shall not attempt to send you much, but the enclosed articles appearing recently with the
statement by Rev. Mr. Morris may be of interest.
Remembering with great interest your brief visit in our home a few years ago.
Yours very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Mr. Gillett has prepared a statement bearing upon your article in The Outlook and sent it to Mr.
Jenkins of the Y.M.C.A., New York. 1 very much hope the article is shown to you.
1 think you are in position to render to Japan a very great service and to help to a modification of
the laws which are working such gross injustice.
[ATTACHED ARTICLE ENCLOSED IN ABOVE LETTER]
[Newspaper in which this article appeared is unclear. It looks like Hal Chron. 11/21/12]
INJUSTICES IN COREA SHAME OF JAPAN
(Statement by the Rev. Dr. Wilton Merle Smith Criticizes Treatment of Christian Missionaries)
New York, Nov. 20 - The Rev. Mr. Wilton Merle Smith, of this city, who has just returned from Japan, China, and
Corea, last Sunday in his church, the Central Presbyterian, preached on conditions in Japan. After the service he
dictated a statement, touching upon Japan’s treatment of the Corean Christians based upon very careful observations
and inquiries. He said: “The great trial in Corea, which is now Japanese territory, has been criticized. One hundred
and twenty-three of the most prominent pastors and officers of the Protestant Christian churches were charged with
an attempt to assault the Governor General. Nearly one hundred were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment of
from five to ten years. The sole evidence upon which the judgment against the prisoners was given was their own
confessions, which they all repudiated at the trial and said were wrung from them by the police by torture. Mr.
Kennedy, the representative of the Associated Press in Japan, who has been decorated by the Japanese government
and is known as strongly pro-Japanese, does not believe torture was used to a large extent.
“As Mr. Kennedy represents the case. Prince Ito, the former governor, was assassinated by a renegade
Roman Catholic Christian. Two other attempts at assassination were made by Christians, so-called. These attempts
made the Japanese government suspicious of the Christians. The present Governor General of Corea was at the head
of the Japanese spy system during the war. He sent spies everywhere in Corea. These spies testified against these
pastors. These spies caused this large number of pastors and Christian officials to be arrested and these men who
were arrested confessed to the police that they were engaged in a plot to assassinate the present Governor General,
2/12/1913 - p.2 S.A.M. enclosing article written 1 1/21/1912 in a U.S. newspaper
which confessions they all repudiated at the trial, declaring they were made under torture. They simply said yes to
anything they were asked.
“Some of the missionaries [in Japan] even take a Japanese view of the trial. The venerable Dr. Loomis, of
Yokohama, feels that there must have been some measure of justification for the conviction. The other view is that
these confessions were extorted under torture and the Japanese judges had no corroborative evidence whatever. I
saw one physician, who treated these prisoners who said he saw the marks of torture on them. Several of the
prisoners died in prison.
“Whichever view may be taken in this matter there is one criticism that seems justified. The Court refused
to allow most of the prisoners to present rebuttal testimony. This is Japan’s shame that her judges gave no fan-
chance for the prisoners to prove their innocence. She has convicted one hundred of the leading pastors and officers
of the church upon evidence not worthy of the name. It is difficult to see how in the splendid galaxy of Japan’s noble
achievements this one act can ever be known as anything else but Japan’s shame.
“Mr. Nobu Watanabe, the Japanese Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Corea, who is stopping for a few
days at the Hotel Netherland, on a round the world tour by special commission of his government, with his attache,
Mr. Tokitara Auju, was entertained last night at a dinner given by Mr. Kokichi Midzumi, the Japanese Consul
General. Mr. Watanabe denied the charge that his government had relieved him from duty in order that a less
sympathetic judge might officiate in the trial of the Corean Christians’’. [Judge Watanabe and his wife were
Christians — Eileen F. Moffett]
(Reproduced from the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress)
Seoul, Korea
February 17, 1913
Samuel A. Moffett
My Dear Rhodes: [Harry A. Rhodes]
Your letter concerning work in Manchuria and also in Chang jin county [was] received
and will be brought before the Executive Committee.
I went through Chang jin county 22 years ago this spring and know somewhat of what
you are talking about and of its location. Went from ^ "o Hu Jang & ^[ o Ja Sung to "o
Chang Jin and thence to ^5- Ham Heung and l! Won San. Pretty nearly starved up there,
too. Had nothing for two weeks but millet and greens soup with two eggs and two 2-inch fishes
all that time. Hope you take more food along when you go there than Gale [James S. Gale] and
I had.
What paper are you taking in Kang Kyei? You people ought to get the Advertiser of
Tokyo. It is a fine paper with a first class man as editor - who stands for what is right on most
questions and also gives good news. (I get no commissions!)
I trust all goes well with all of you and that the Hoffmans are enjoying their new work. I
often envy you your freedom from contact with all the vexations of too close a touch with the
world and its events out here.
Yours sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel A. Moffett papers)
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN KOREA MISSION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
Seoul, Korea February 17, 1913 Samuel A. Moffett
Rev. A.J. Brown, D.D., 156 Fifth Ave., New York
Dear Dr. Brown:
Just a few lines to keep you posted on several matters. I hope to write you at length before
long.
I cabled you “White not necessary. Methodists only received pamphlets.” I have written to Dr. White
at Shanghai explaining that we shall of course be delighted to have a visit from him but that for the
purposes mentioned in your letter, many with whom I conferred agree that his visit is not necessary
and so in all honesty we had to so cable even though thereby we may shut out a very much desired
visit. We do not see what Dr. White can do in the circumstances. After our Ex. Com. meeting I hope
to write you as to the kind of a deputation which may accomplish something. I also sent to Dr. White
a number of articles with Chronicle pamphlet bearing on the situation.
Some days ago I cabled you “appoint Helstrom”. The Mission is under the impression that
action on this was taken in 1910 but reference to the Minutes shows that by default the action was left
incomplete. Miss Helstrom is one of the most efficient missionaries we have. The negative vote on
transferring her to evangelistic work was due to the fear of the Medical people that it would seem to
indicate there was not much need for nurses - and their desire to keep her as a nurse. She prefers the
evangelistic work.
Copies of your pamphlet reached the members of the Methodist mission nearly a month ago
and we expected them each mail but none have as yet come to us. Copies of the Call to Prayer came
two days ago.
The Trial will close soon. The Tokyo lawyers are to speak on the 24‘'' and 25"’ as they are
kept in Tokyo until then by the political situation there. Court will probably adjourn today until the
24* as all seems finished except these speeches and the Procurator’s reply. There has been nothing to
cable of importance, but I will cable as soon as there is.
Please read the enclosed. We are delighted with the Korean lawyer’s testimony concerning
Yun’s confession. It confirms what we heard months ago, but could not verify. That was torture.
The testimony has broken the case of the prosecution. If the Judge is free to act judicially we
can look for acquittal.
Miss Helstrom has withdrawn her request for leave of absence this summer.
Very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #3, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #54)
Pyeng Yang, Korea March 4, 1 9 1 3 J amie M. Moffett
Dear grandma,
I am having a nice time. Thank you very very much for the things you have sent me.
We have got two American chickens. There were 21 children at my birthday party. We
played London Bridge is Falling Down.
Esther and Mary Swallen brought me a basket of apples. Father was here on my birthday.
We are going to have some of the apples that Esther and Mary sent me for supper.
I have got some nice new balls. I am in the third grade in Reading, Arithmetic, Spelling
and Language.
From your loving grandson,
Jamie Moffett [James McKee Moffett, oldest
child of Samuel Austin Moffett to
his maternal grandmother in San Rafael, California]
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers)
Pyong Yang, Korea
March 12, 1913
Sallie W. Swallen
[Dear Friends:]
My greeting to the Board of the Northwest is Colossians 2:5 : “For though I be absent in
the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of
your faith in Christ.” 1 shall be thinking of you and praying for you. I begin to teach in the
Women’s Bible Institute April Galatians for three weeks and Old Testament History three
hours a week for the two months and a half My plan is to spend as many Saturdays and Sundays
in the country as I can. By going out on the train and walking two or three miles I can reach
about fifteen churches.
Our ten days class for the country women closed yesterday. Of about 450 enrolled, 208
were from the Western Circuit. Eight women from the Sam Kole Church walked 16 miles every
day. They said they were tired the first day or two, but they soon got used to it. I had them all in
for dinner one day. Three of the eight passed an excellent examination in the Gospel of John.
How could one help but love such earnest women! I cannot say how much I do love them and
they know it. I know you would love them.
It is our custom for each missionary’s wife to entertain the women of her husband’s
territory in her home for an hour or so, serving tea and cookies. I had ninety-one women one
afternoon and about 120 the next afternoon. Miss Rogers brought over her Victrola and played
for them. They were delighted when I sang Onward Christian Soldiers in Korean while the
Victrola played. Miss Rogers taught them singing and I played for her. We taught them Don V
Stop Praying, Come to Me all that Labor, There ’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy and We Need Thee
Every Hour. There were seven classes - fourteen recitations a day, and each evening a lecture by
a missionary or a native pastor. The women were very happy. In the 50 churches and groups in
our Circuit, and the South Gate Church there have been 54 classes, total enrolment 2,446, and
three churches have not yet reported.
Yours in the Master’s service,
(Mrs. W.L.) Sallie Swallen
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Korea missionary letters and papers)
Taiku, Korea March 31, 1913 James E. Adams
(XIX) Secretary of the Joint Committee for Christian Education in Korea.
My Dear Dr. Brown
On the 22"'* and 24“* of this month the Educational Senate held another meeting and
finished the various matters for action on which your Committee has been waiting. I think that in
my former letter I also neglected to inform you of the Senate’s action.
At this meeting of the Senate it also took the following action concerning location and
directed that it be forwarded to your Committee.
“Action on the College Location Question.”
In view of the fact that the votes received by the Senate on the location of the Union
College were the votes of the Missions and not the votes of the missionaries and noting in the
minutes received from the committee in New York that the following action was taken - the
location of the college to be determined by the cooperating Boards after the judgment of the
majority of the missionaries shall have been ascertained - we request delay on the part of the
Joint Committee until information can be furnished in conformity with the above quoted action.
We also suggest that since among the cooperating Missions are the Canadian Presbyterian
and the Australian Presbyterian Missions, that the votes of their Board representatives be secured
before decision is rendered.
Therefore, be it resolved,
1 . That we request Mr. Jerdine and Mr. Moffett to each prepare an article setting forth
the considerations that should weigh on either side of the college location proposition. The
General Secretary shall have these printed in circular form, and sent to the members of the
missionary bodies who are expected to vote on the question.
2. That the following form for vote be attached:
Individual vote on the one college location question:
The Educational Senate desires you to carefully consider the question as set forth above,
and then, irrespective of organic Mission vote, express your own individual and personal opinion
in a direct categorical answer. The object of this is not to secure a binding vote but to ascertain
the consensus of mature opinion in the missionary body.
Question:-
As between Seoul and Pyeng Yang, where do you, personally, think that a college will
best secure for the entire country those ends which as missionary workers we seek in collegiate
education.
3. That these votes shall be returned to the General Secretary within a month from the
time of sending and he shall transcribe the names and send to the Joint Committee.
Members of the Mission body voting shall be limited to male missionaries who have been
not less than one year on the field.”
It was considered that this would also be a most valuable cross plowing of the question
and give your committee even greater light on the real opinion of the missionary body than the
majority votes of the individual Missions, although these are of course the authoritative voices,
so far as authority exists on the field. It was also felt that it would greatly clarify the situation in
the missionary body itself It might even show the possibility of arriving at a decision on the
field. This is greatly to be desired. It is no small factor in securing that hearty cooperation and
backing of all parties which is the essential thing in the success of the institution.
3/31/1913 - p.2 J.E.A.
In my former report to you I informed you that the vote of the Methodist Episcopal
Mission, South, was said to have been practically unanimous on the college location question. I
have been lately informed by another member of the same Mission that it stood six or seven to
nine in favor of Seoul. No record of the vote seems to have been made in the Mission minutes
and it is a question of memory. Both seem to be equally sure.
In the case of the vote of the Canadian Mission on the same question you will remember
that my information was limited to a telegram. I have been since informed by a member of that
Mission that the vote stood four to five in favor of Seoul with three members not having
opportunity to vote. He also informed me that there had been a mistake as to their representative
on the Senate. The situation seems rather confused, but I hope to have the correct information in
a few days and will then forward the information. Believe me.
Yours in the Service,
James E. Adams
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 59 - 60.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
New York, New York April 15,1913 Arthur Judson Brown
(Vn) BOARD LETTER NO. 145 - UNION CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN KOREA
To the Korea Mission,
Dear Friends:
Board letter No. 120 of December 26'*’, 1912, gave the action of the Board of December
lb* on the actions recorded on pp. 51-52, 53, 57, and 83 of the Minutes of your last Annual
Meeting on the College question and stated that, “In view, however, of the difference of opinion
between the Presbyterian and Methodist Missions as to whether this one College should be
located in Pyeng Yang or Seoul, the Board deferred action on the question of location pending
consideration of location by the Joint Committee in America on Education in Korea, which was
requested to submit a recommendation on this subject.”
Long and careful consideration has been given to the questions involved in the location of
the proposed Union College in Korea. Perhaps the delay has appeared trying to you, but we are
sure that you will feel that a question which has agitated the missionaries on the field for several
years and on which they have not yet been able to agree could not have been and should not have
been hastily decided at this end of the line. It had to be passed upon first by the Joint Committee
representing the co-operating Boards. As the members of this Committee are widely scattered,
this part of the work of the Committee itself called not only for thoughtful study, but time. When
the Committee had agreed upon its report, that report had to be submitted to the Boards for their
action, and the Boards hold their meetings at different times. At last we have been notified of the
official action of all the six Boards concerned and we therefore now enclose the Report of the
Joint Committee.
I can personally understand, my dear friends, how disappointing this report will be to
many of you. You are aware that I have been in favor of Pyeng Yang. Indeed, the expression of
my judgment on page 190 of my printed “Report On a Second Visit to China, Japan and Korea,
1909", called forth some of the sharpest criticisms from Korea missionaries that I have ever
received on any subject. You are also aware that in subsequent correspondence I defended the
position that I then took and that I have done everything in my power both in Mission and
personal letter to support the position of our own Mission. The situation, however, changed in
two important particulars.
The first was the definite emergence of the proposal for a Union College representing all
the Missions in Korea. You will recall that in Board letters of November 14, 1910, and February
24, 1911,1 specifically stated that if this question should arise it would have to be considered on
its merits at the time.
The second was the discovery that a majority of the co-operating Boards could not be
centered upon Pyeng Yang. We were therefore confronted in our own Board by the necessity of
agreeing to go to Seoul or of abandoning altogether the idea of one Union College and of having
a Presbyterian College in Pyeng Yang and a Methodist College in Seoul. It became absolutely
clear, for reasons which I have explained in former correspondence, that our Board believes that
one Union College is more important than the question of location, and that a Presbyterian
College in Pyeng Yang could not command the support which would be absolutely essential to
any reasonable hope for its success.
The arguments for and against Seoul and Pyeng Yang, which are stated in the Joint
Committee’s report, were the ones that were brought out in the various conferences and
discussions on the subject. Some of us were startled by the comparative strength of the argument
4/15/1913 - p.2 A.J.B.
for Seoul. You will note, however, that care has been taken to include in the Joint Committee’s
Report the arguments for Pyeng Yang which have been urged in your correspondence. We have
received a very large number of letters from Korea strongly presenting the arguments for Pyeng
Yang. One missionary wrote that he feared that the advocates of Seoul were bringing pressure to
bear on our Board. 1 replied that we had received a dozen letters for Pyeng Yang where we had
received one for Seoul. The Rev. Dr. James E. Adams, under date of Jan. 29*, sent one of the
strongest arguments for Pyeng Yang that I have ever read, and in order that it might have its full
effect, I sent copies of his letter to all the members of the Joint Committee. When the matter
came before our own Board, I explained that the report would not be pleasing to you and I
summarized your position as best I could. The Rev. Dr. John Fox then took the floor and made
an able speech in favor of Pyeng Yang. If you could have heard Dr. Fox I think you would have
felt that he admirably stated your views. When the vote was taken, however, he was the only one
who voted for Pyeng Yang, the vote being seventeen to one in favor of the Joint Committee’s
Report. 1 have since collected the views of the absent members and find that the vote of the
entire membership of the Board is twenty-one for the Joint Committee’s recommendations and
one against them, although one of the majority qualified his vote by the belief that the time will
yet come when two colleges will be needed and that we should not do anything now which
would make it impossible to resume College work in Pyeng Yang. He said that his present vote,
however, was for the report.
1 state these things, dear friends, in order that you may know that care was taken to see
that your views were understood both by the Joint Committee of the Boards and by our own
Board.
You will note, however, that the Joint Committee’s Report and the actions of the Board
upon it, do not finally settle the matter, as the report specifically provides that the missionaries in
Korea shall have another opportunity to pass upon the whole question. It is perhaps but just that
I should say to you, as your Secretary, that I caused this referendum to be included and that, apart
from Dr. Fox, to whom I have referred, the only real opposition in our Board to the Joint
Committee’s Report was to this referendum, many feeling that in view of the long controversy
and the divided opinions on the field, it would be better for the Boards to decide the matter at
once out of hand and put an end to the controversy. I urged, however, the considerations stated at
the top of page ten of the Joint Committee’s report, stating that some letters indicated a belief
that a large majority of the missionaries were for Pyeng Yang and that it would be only fair to
give you an opportunity to prove it. As many of you have expressed confidence that the great
body of missionary opinion in Korea is in favor of Pyeng Yang, you now have a chance to
demonstrate the accuracy of your opinion, and if you can do so the whole question will be
reopened here in the light of that fact.
Some at this end of the line are rather puzzled by the pleas in a number of letters from
members of the Mission not to destroy the educational work at Pyeng Yang. It seems odd that
anyone should imagine that moving the College department to another city a comparatively short
distance away should be considered as destroying it. Moving the Shantung Christian College
from Tung-chou to Waihsien did not destroy it but rather improved it the College department to
another city a comparatively short distance away should be considered as destroying it. Moving
the Shantung Christian College from Tung-chou to Waihsien did not destroy it but rather
improved it, and moving it again, as has now been decided upon, is not interpreted by anyone as
destroying it, but rather as planting it where it will grow to better advantage. Moreover, the
Academy and Theological Seminary at Pyeng Yang which form by far the largest part of the
educational work there will remain as before. The Board has no idea whatever of “destroying the
work at Pyeng Yang,” and it is at a loss to understand how anyone could have gotten such an
impression.
4/15/1913 - p.3 A.J.B.
I could not easily tell you, my dear friends, how much anxious thought has been given to
the whole matter. There has been no disposition to take the matter out of the hands of the
missionaries. Indeed, the reverse has been true. If the workers on the field had decided it, I
believe that all here would gladly have acquiesced. But when the missionaries came to a
deadlock, there was no alternative but for the Boards to take up the matter. Knowing you as I do,
I venture to believe that you will now go into the vote on the referendum with a large-hearted and
thoroughly Christian spirit. Whatever the result, some must be disappointed, and these
disappointed ones, whoever they may ultimately prove to be, will have an excellent opportunity
to exemplify one of the best graces of the Christian life. The ark of the Lord is not going to be
imperilled because followers of the Lord, who are as devoted as we are, believe that one site for a
College is better than another. Dissension, however, will imperil that ark.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN U.S.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 28-30.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Peimsylvania)
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN KOREA MISSION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
Pyengyang, Korea April 21, 1913 Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
Keenly sensitive to the fact that I am late in writing you on several matters, I can only plead
your own valid excuse in justification and say, “I am so crowded with conferences” and work in
connection with the “Conspiracy Case” and the Theological Seminary which this year has 205
students enrolled that I have been compelled to delay this correspondence.
I have 4 main Divisions of Subjects upon which to write you:
1. The Mission vote on Ex. Com. Recommendations 15 to 29.
2. The Actions of the Ex.. Com. which required no Mission vote.
3. Answers to your questions concerning former Actions of Ex. Com. and Mission.
4. The “Conspiracy Case”.
First. - Numbering the Ex. Com.’s Recommendations consecutively with those of my letter of
December 27'*', 1912, 1 enclose typewritten copy of letter to Mission which contains these
recommendations with the vote of the Mission inserted with pen. As you will see, all were adopted
by the Mission. Of these. No’s. 16, 18, 21, 23, and 27 should receive the approval of the Board.
Explanations concerning the recommendations are needed as follows:
No. 18. - The Board has already taken action making Miss Helstrom a full member but action
concerning Mr. McMurtrie is needed, although we all thought this had been taken.
No. 19. - In view of this action, it should be noted that Recommendations Nos. 2 & 3 of Dec. 1912
failed to secure a % vote. These referred to Seoul’s requests for Primary School Building and yearly
running expenses.
No. 25. - The negative votes are from Seoul, Dr. Avison commenting - “Do not think P.Y. Station
did anything wrong in employing a desirable person to help carry out its complement of work
provided they did not take the funds from the work of other stations or other departments.”
No. 27. - Negative votes from Seoul and Pyengyang. Since this action was taken. Miss McKee has
had word of the serious illness of her mother and with the approval of her Station has already started
home. This is irregular but her letter will explain the situation.
Second. - The Actions of the Ex. Com. which required no Mission vote I have numbered Al, A2,
etc. in order to distinguish them from those requiring Mission Action, and to facilitate reference.
These actions are as follows:
Al. - That a Committee of 3, including the Chairman, be appointed to consider the letter from the
Australian Mission relative to the transfer of territory, and prepare such data as may be needed, and
present same to the next meeting of the Ex. Com.; also that a copy of the letter be sent to each
Station of the Mission. S.A. Moffett, N.C. Whittemore and J.E. Adams were appointed the
Committee. A copy of the Australian letter is enclosed herewith.
A2. - That the protest of Kang Kei Station regarding Methodist workers going into Sye Kan Do be
endorsed by the Ex. Com. and that if necessary, it be presented to the Ex. Com. of the Federal
Council; and to the Methodist Conference in the Spring; and that Mr. Whittemore and Dr. Adams be
our representatives in the matter. (I understand that this has been adjusted satisfactorily.)
4/21/1913 - p.2 S.A.M.
A3. - That in view of the action of the Mission (Minutes, page 103, Sec. 13) and the Board action
(Letter 109, 1 1/7/12) we recommend that the salary and expenses of Dr. Thornton A. Mills be
assumed by the Board, to date from April 1, 1913.
A4. - That Dr. Mills continue to work under the direction of the Ex. Com.’s sub-committee until
Annual Meeting.
A5. - That we instruct Dr. Moffett to request the Com. of Arrangements for the Mott conference that
if vacancies occur among delegates from among the membership of our Mission, alternates be
appointed in the following order, viz Welbon, Kagin, Hunt. Also we request that in any event Mr.
Welbon be added to the delegates, in order that our Southern work be more adequately represented.
A6. - That the Ex. Com. give an hour on the evening of March 3"^ to a conference with Chairyung
Station on station questions and policies.
A7. - That the Chairman be instructed to ascertain from the Federation of Missions in Japan the
terms of admission to the Federation, and present them to the next meeting of the Committee.
A8. - That the Secretary of the Ex. Com. co-operate with the Mission Chairman in seeing that
representatives go to the Annual Meeting of the Japan Mission, beginning July 24*.
A9. - That we request the faculty of the Language School to give a course of instruction in the
proprieties, politenesses, conduct in public, and those various things, the observance of which is so
potent in acquiring and keeping the respect and affection of the Koreans. And in addition, from our
observations we are convinced of the need, and we urge upon the membership of all our stations a
reconsideration of our habits in these matters, and greater care therein.
A 10. - That Dr. Mills and Dr. Clark be appointed a Committee to prepare a Circular for Visitors.
AIL- That the Ex.Com. desires to point out to the Educational Senate, that in its action of reference
of the location of College to the Joint Committee in America, the clause making the action of that
Committee final does not lie within the province of the Senate to decide. The action of our Board
ratifying the Constitution and permitting our Mission to participate, included the following: - “The
Board therefore, while heartily sympathizing saw no alternative but to make its approval
subject to the condition that all acts and proceedings of the Senate of the Educational
Foundation shall be subject to the review and control of the co-operating Missions on the field, and,
through them, of the Boards at home, in the same way as other Union Institutions.”
A12. - That the Ex.Com., referring to the Board’s Letter 120, relative to one College in Korea, feels
it necessary to say to the Board that in its opinion, the Mission in its action did not intend to make its
decision as to location subordinate or secondary to its position on the question of one College. The
two are bound up together, and together represent the very mature conviction of the Mission. The
vote of the Mission on one College represents the Mission’s position, only as it is taken with the vote
on location; the final motion being:- One College in Korea and that to be in Pyeng Yang.
(Doubtless you already realize that the persistent effort on the part of a few in our Mission to defeat
the desire of the Mission concerning the College has caused us to feel that they are jeopardizing the
spiritual interests of the whole Church in Korea. I am sending with this a statement prepared at the
request of the Educational Senate on the subject and ask a quiet, serious and thoughtful reading of
the same.)
A 13. - That the Sub-committee on the Board’s Prayer Calendar be instructed to report to the next
meeting a “copy” for the Korea month of the said calendar. Such copy shall be sent to the Board
after approval by the Ex.Com., with letter explaining the reason for our action. In case of their being
4/21/13 - p.3 S.A.M.
no June meeting of this Committee the Sub-committee shall circulate this report within the Ex.Com.,
and upon its approval, send it to the Board before August P‘.
A14. - That the Finance Com., with Mr. Genso, be instructed to look up the old deeds and settle as
quickly as possible the difficulty which has arisen concerning a grave site on our Fusan Station
Property.
A 15. - That we send the following suggested schedule for Annual Gatherings in August and
September to the chairman of the Ex. Com. of the Federal Council, to be considered at the first
meeting of that Com. - and as approved, submitted to the bodies concerned for suggested adoption.
(You are not concerned with the Schedule but only with the fact that it is in order to save time, so 1
omit sending copy of Schedule.)
A 16. - That Mr. Whittemore and Dr. Adams be a committee to confer with the Northern Methodist
Mission in regard to the proposed entrance of their workers into our work in Sye Kan Do, to meet at
the time of the Mott Conference (This seems to duplicate A2).
A 17. - That Dr. Sharrocks take the “Suggestions for Outfit and Travel”, confer with the committee
which prepared them and then, with such modifications as may be decided upon, send them to the
Board.
A 18. - That the Secretary of Ex.Com. be instructed to write the Board relative to the need of a
teacher of Science for the College in Pyengyang.
A 19. - That the documents referring to Expediting Business of Annual Meeting be referred to a sub-
committee, Dr. Clark and Mr. Whittemore.
Third. - 1 now come to the answers to your questions concerning former Actions of the Ex.Com. and
Mission. There are quite a number of these and 1 will take them up in order of the number of your
letters dealing with them.
Letter No. 122, page 3 refers to the reading of Board Letters. Let me assure you that the Board
letters are carefully read, but when they have been circulated for reading they are not always read in
Station meeting, or are read in outline only.
Letter No. 122, page 4. Interpretation of Paragraph of the Manual.
As I understand the question, it rests on the Mission’s conviction that for the time that the
missionaries are members of the Presbyteries and General Assembly of the Korean Church it is
essential that they attend these meetings. For a few years yet this is as important as attendance upon
the meetings of the District Leaders as a part of one’s itinerating duties. Attendance upon this latter
is of course a legitimate charge upon the Itineration Fund, and it is felt the former should be also.
However, your letter is plain and a literal interpretation of the Manual prevents such a use of funds,
so the matter must rest there until the Mission proposes a solution of the difficulty.
Letter No. 122, page 8. Primary School Funds.
We are deeply concerned over this question and your reply to the Mission request. We feel it
essential to maintain our Primary Schools. That to merge them in the Government schools would be
a great mistake. Because Korea is now a part of the Empire of Japan is no reason why the policy and
4/21/13 - p.4 S.A.M.
methods of Mission work should be conformed to those of the Japan Mission, or the Korean Church
be developed upon the model of the Japanese Church. It is clear that the attitude of the military
government in Korea towards the Church is very different from that of the government in Japan
towards the Church in Japan. The conditions are vastly different. This is the critical time for our
schools. The other Missions realize it and are obtaining funds for this purpose. We cannot meet this
situation out of the regular budget and so make the appeal for a special fund to be used as an
encouragement and help to the Koreans to put forth special effort to save their church schools. We
feel that with Board approval and effort some one may be found to provide a fund for this purpose.
The Educational Senate of Korea has placed this first, I believe, in order of preference in its requests.
This has already received special study and thought and has been urged for some three years with
increasing conviction and emphasis.
If the whole amount, $25,000 cannot be secured at once, cannot $5,000 each for a period of 5 years
be appealed for?
April 24*.))) I have just received a telegram which calls me from Theological Seminary class room
to attend the Supreme Court Trial, and I must take the train at once. I therefore send this so far as
written and will take it up at this point upon my return from Seoul.
With kindest regards and in hope of seeing the acquittal of the other six men also.
Very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman Executive Committee
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #3, 140-3-5, letter #55)
New York, New York
April 28, 1913
Arthur Judson Brown
(XX) LETTER A. J. B. TO J. E. A.
The Rev. James E. Adams,
Taiku, Chosen. (Korea).
My Dear Mr. Adams: -
The last mail brings your letter of March 3 E* and as I am deeply involved in some
engagements which require absence from the office and then a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, to attend
the General Assembly, I send a hurried answer at once.
I note with interest that you are expected, as General Secretary of the Educational Senate,
to be the channel of communication with the Joint Committee in this country. I learn this
morning, on inquiry and with some dismay that a copy of the Joint Committee’s report, together
with my letter to the Mission, No. 145, of April 15*, was not mailed separately to you. Of
course, you saw it as a member of Taiku Station, but you ought to have additional copies for your
official use as General Secretary of the Educational Senate. I therefore enclose these copies
herewith.
One question that is not quite clear is as to the extent to which actions of the Educational
Senate require confirmation by the cooperating Missions. For example, when the Senate voted to
refer the question of college location to our Joint Committee with power, were we to infer that if
our Joint Committee had settled the matter finally the Missions in Korea would have supported
the position which your Educational Senate took? The same question arises in connection with
the budget and list of property needs which you sent in your present letter. Are we to regard
them as official, so far as field approval is concerned, before they are passed upon by the
Mission?
There will be time enough for you to answer this question because our Joint Committee
and the Boards cannot do anything really effective about getting money for new educational
equipment in Korea on the proposed plan until the college location question is settled. It is true
that considerable sums are asked for apart from the college proper, but it is also true that when
we start out to get such large sums of money we must be prepared to submit a unified educational
program. I hope this will be made very clear to the Missions. As long as they are so widely
divided as they are now, as the correspondence indicates that each side is unwilling to yield,
majority or no majority, and as long as individual missionaries are writing tetters to their friends
in this country advocating their particular view and depreciating the other, it will be very hard for
those of us at home who have the educational interests of Korea at heart to make much headway,
in comparison with other Mission fields where the missionaries stand together.
It is an interesting coincidence that your letter indicates that the Educational Senate had
already decided to call for a vote by missionaries instead of Missions before the Senate knew of
the recommendation of the Joint Committee in America. We are heartily glad of this, partly
4/28/1913 - p.2 AJ.B.
because it confirms my own judgment as to the wisdom of it and partly because it will facilitate
an earlier decision.
Personally, I still adhere to the position that I have taken from the first, namely, that the
essential thing is one Union College in Korea, in whose support all can unite and that while I
have personal preference as to a location I will officially strongly support the location which is
favored by the majority of all the missionaries concerned.
We are crowded now with special labors incident to preparations for the General
Assembly. Everything points to a meeting of extraordinary character. I wish you could be
present.
With warm regards to Mrs. Adams and with many prayers for God’s loving blessing upon
you all, I remain.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 60-61.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett eolleetion of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
colleetions of the Presbyterian Historieal Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyengyang, Korea
May 2, 1913
Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
This is the continuation of my letter of April 2D‘, which was interrupted by a call to Seoul
to attend the Trial in Supreme Court. I cabled you on 26*, “ Trial finished. Judgment reserved.”
We are very hopeful of the release of the men and the final vindication of the Church and the
Christians. You will have another cable as soon as the judgment is rendered. Now for answers
to your questions
Letter No. 124. Relations to Japanese and Japan Mission.
There is nothing new to report except Recommendation A 7 in letter just sent you. I am
carrying on the correspondence with Dr. Dealing of the Federation of Missions in Japan, and
their Exec. Com. Has replied expressing their deep interest in the proposal sending a copy of the
Constitution and assuring us and other Missions that all will be cordially welcomed to
membership in the Conference on the terms indicated in the Constitution as applicable to
Missions in Japan. The presence of Messrs. Dunlop, Pieters and Wilson from Japan to assist us
in the Trial has been of very great benefit in uniting the missionaries of Japan and Korea, and
particularly so in giving the missionaries in Japan a correct idea of the situation here. They
realize, most of them, that the case concerns them also, and their sympathy and interest has been
most helpful to us. Dr. Fulton however has failed to understand the situation as his letter clearly
shows. His letter also misquoted me where he says, “Dr. M said that at the time of annexation if
they had given the word, the whole of North Korea would have risen in rebellion under the
leadership of the Christians.” This was not at time of annexation, but was long before that, at the
time of the Emperor’s deposition. His (Dr. Fulton’s) dogmatic assertions upon questions
concerning which he had so little knowledge were amazing to me.
Letter No. 126. The Fusan Question.
1 do not wonder that you had difficulty in understanding the actions of the Mission on this
subject, and I am not sure that you have yet secured an interpretation of the mind of the Mission,
or that the question has reached a final settlement. As the Australian proposition shows, the
question of Fusan will again be up for discussion. The Mission did not change the name of the
Station which still remains the Fusan-Milyang Station, altho in view of Mr. Smith’s transfer.
Miss Doriss’s absence, and Mr. Blair’s furlough the instructions to the Winns to reside in
Milyang were rescinded. The property in Milyang consists of two small houses fitted up for
temporary quarters, and a site for the Station as then contemplated. The Mission was evidently
so uncertain as to the action it had taken that it took no action with reference to the property
there, and the Executive Committee advised the Station to leave all property in status quo until
next Annual Meeting.
Letter No. 126. The Fusan Girls’ School and Miss Pollard’s appointment.
The Mission’s plan is to place its Higher School for Girls in our Southern territory in the
Taiku Station, leaving the Australian Mission with the bulk of the population of the Southern
province and its Five Stations to provide the Higher School for Girls in that province. This is in
accord with the policy of the Educational Senate of Korea, which plans for but one Academy for
Boys and one for Girls in each province. Our Fusan School will therefore be of the “Common”
and possibly “Higher Common” grade. Miss Pollard’s appointment was to Taiku for Educational
work, she to take the Girls’ School there and proceed with its development. This is in accord
with your letter No. 61 to which you refer. In this letter on page 5 in objecting to Miss Pollard’s
assignment to Evangelistic work (which assignment the Mission corrected at once), you say “We
5/02/13 - p.2 S.A.M.
fully recognize the wisdom of the rule that a Mission should assign the location and work of a
recruit.” Also on page 6 you say, “We do not wish to be understood that she should be sent to
the Fusan Girls’ School. The Board cordially recognizes the right of the Mission to use a teacher
for educational work where in its judgment, the need may be greatest, etc. etc.” Miss Pollard was
associated with Miss Snook in Pyongyang Women’s Academy for some months in preparation
for this assignment to Educational work, and while Pyongyang needed her greatly, yet the
Mission decided that Taiku’s need for the development of its Girls’ School and Women’s
Academy was even greater, and she was assigned there.
Letter K. of Jan’y 24, 1913. Blank Forms for Reports Boarding Schools.
I understand these are being filled out in each Station and returned to the Board. In the
local Station a Committee was appointed to see to this.
Letter 129. School for the Children of Missionaries, Pyengyang.
We are eager to learn that the money for this school dormitory is available for use, and we
trust that as soon as Miss Wheeler sends her gift we may be able to proceed with building. We
are of course hoping for further gifts for the School. Mr. Blair’s letter asking you to send the
money was written on the instruction of the Board of Managers which under the Constitution has
the management of the School. As the Mission had already approved the project and appointed a
committee with power to act, we had not asked for further action on the part of Mission or
Ex. Com., but wrote in the name of the Board of Managers. However we will see to it that all
regulations are carefully followed. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Luckett, the
Matron, and as Mr. Herbert Blair has just written us from America that he has made a contract
with Miss Lucia Fish as teacher for next year, all we now want in order to have things in
excellent running order is the first wing of the new Dormitory and a fund for its equipment. This
School is such a great blessing and is so greatly needed that we earnestly pray that some one may
soon be found to provide for its most urgent needs. Miss Fish, the new teacher, is a cousin of
Mrs. Moffett, and most highly recommended.
Letter No. 130. Miss Howe as Nurse for Chungju.
I did not write concerning her further than the Ex.Com. Recommendation No. 6 because
Dr. Purviance was to have written you in full coneeming her and the situation. However, you
met the case and afterwards found the money through Mrs. Duncan. Miss Howe went to work
for Dr. Purviance November 7* and continued until April T‘ when for reasons which I do not
fully know but satisfactory to them both she gave up the work and decided to return to America.
Settlement is made with her up to April P‘ leaving a balance in the amount furnished by Mrs.
Duncan, the use of which can be determined later.
Letter No. 130, page 2, No. 9 of Ex. Corn’s recommendations re Pyengyang property sale or gift
for City School Endowment. Doubtless I should have called attention to Mission action.
Minutes, 1912, page 118, Sec. 10, as bearing on this. Of course we recognize the principle
concerning use of proceeds from sale of property, but in this case not only is the sum a small one,
probably ¥1000 less the ¥450 to be used for city wall site in connection with Theological
Seminary, Hospital and Women’s Academy compounds, but owing to the fact that Korean funds
had also been used on it and all but a few of the officers had thought it was Korean Church
property, we thought it best for them to receive the proceeds from the increase in value, the
Board receiving only the original cost. The property has always been used for the Korean Church
and Primary Schools. I enclose a diagram showing how the road runs through the property and
5/02/13 - p.3 S.A.M.
the small fragments left. The Grammar School already has some endowment and this will be
held in the same way by the Church for the School, altho as this is already held in the Board’s
name and is secure it may be well to leave it so, allowing the School the use of any part not sold.
They will probably rent the two small buildings after putting them in shape. We do not want to
have to look after the property. There is not enough in it to pay us for the time. I think the above
gives you all that bears on this question.
Letter No. 130, page 3 - Lease of Seoul, South Gate land for “Pindar Home.”
As I understand that this project is now uncertain of accomplishment and as Dr. Avison
knows all about it I will ask him to write you if need be.
Letter No. 132. Furloughs or Leave of Absence.
You refer to this subject in Letter No. 139 also, and in that provide that since the
appropriations did not include the estimates for Leave of Absence for Dr. Gale, Miss Snook and
Dr. Moffett, these will be provided for as before the new rule was adopted, that is by
continuation of field salary, they to meet their own expenses. This will be quite satisfactory, and
as it seems that after all, I am the only one who has finally adhered to the expectation of taking
the Leave of Absence, there will be little to adjust. However, as noted above. Miss McKee has
unexpectedly gone and Miss Butts has under advice decided to take her Furlough this year so as
to properly adjust the furloughs of the Station, Miss Best going next year and Miss Snook the
following year. We are all deeply interested in the new rules which promise so much for better
health and greater efficiency. Under this rule I understand Miss Shields plans to go home this
year, she greatly needing the furlough.
Letter No. 135. Death of Rev. Dr. Fisher.
Those of us who met Dr. Fisher and especially those of us who were students under him
at Hanover College and know his rare ability as a teacher appreciate very greatly your reference
to him. With four of his students in Pyengyang he may be said to have had a great part in this
field.
Letter No. 141. Appointment of Miss Sanders.
This appointment is greatly appreciated and we hope it is the first of a number of
appointments to Korea this year. We do so greatly need just a few more men and women.
Letter No. 142. Interest on Theological Seminary Endowment.
Your letter says nothing as to the rate of interest allowed, but we suppose it is 4%, as in
other cases.
I suppose it will take me a little while to get so adjusted to my new duty of looking out for
all the questions which must be touched upon in my correspondence as to enable me to keep you
properly posted. I had thought to write you about the “Conspiracy Case”, concerning which there
are volumes which might be written, but I do not know that there is anything which just now
demands attention. We have acted according to the best judgment we have and have constantly
sought guidance in meeting many difficult situations. We have had to decide many questions
where the expenditure of considerable sums of money were involved, but have tried to do only
that which seemed necessary to accomplish the securing of justice. It is gratifying to see how so
many in Japan, both Japanese and foreigners agree that it was the agitation on the part of the
missionaries and the Boards which secured justice so far as it has been secured. There is yet
5/02/1913 - p.4 S.A.M.
much to be done and it is to be hoped that the demand for further justice will be made and that
the demand will secure reformation of the Police Department in Korea and a change injudicial
procedure. We all hope that true friendship for Japan will continue in all kindness to condemn
injustice, torture, interference with religious liberty, and suppression of the truth.
I hope I may have opportunity to talk with you about the situation. I expect to be absent
for 4 months, returning [to Korea] about September VK
Dr. Sharrocks is ad-interim Chairman and will write you on any matters needing attention
during the summer.
With most cordial greetings -
Sincerely yours,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman Executive Committee
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #3, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #56)
New York, New York
May 8, 1913
Arthur J. Brown
To the Korea Mission.
Dear Friends:
Dr. Woodbridge O. Johnson has been ordained to the ministry by the Presbytery of Los
Angeles, and writes under date of May 2"** that his health is steadily improving and that he is
planning to return to Korea to “take up regular clerical work in connection with the Mission.”
He says that he has been advised to remain in this country in order that his health may be fully
restored. We do not yet know, therefore, the exact time when he will be ready to return. We
simply send this information assured that you will be interested in it and with the thought that
you may wish to take it into consideration in connection with your plans for your work at the
next Annual Meeting of the Mission. We fully appreciate the feeling which we are confident that
you must have that all possible care should be exercised by the Board to make sure that health
conditions will permit Dr. Johnson’s return. We shall attend to this matter with thoroughness of
detail. We shall, of course, assume that unless we hear from you to the contrary that you desire
Dr. Johnson’s return provided his health will permit.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from the microfilm archival collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia,
Reel #1, Series n. Record Group 140-2-1 (Outgoing Correspondence)
New York, New York
May 14, 1913
Arthur J. Brown
The Rev. Samuel A. Moffett, D.D.
% Mr. Charles H. Fish
San Rafael, California
My dear Dr. Moffett:
I am sending this letter somewhat at a venture without knowing the exact time of your
arrival but assured that it will await your return, if you are not already in California. We hope
that you have had a pleasant journey. We deeply appreciate the problems and bereavement
which have brought you home.
The Executive Council feels that it is exceedingly important that we should have an
opportunity for a personal conference with you while you are in this country and Mr. L.H.
Severance is also deeply interested in such a conference and wishes to be present. Do your plans
include a trip to New York or could you arrange to return to Korea by way of New York? I am a
little uncertain just what your immediate plans are and shall be glad to hear from you as soon as
possible. On account of the scattering in the summer months it would be highly desirable that we
should have this conference in June, if possible, and if not then, in September.
I enclose a copy of my confidential letter of this date to the Executive Committee of the
Mission regarding the resignation of Miss Ethel McGee. As you are Chairman of the Mission’s
Executive Committee and will not be on the field, will you not immediately write me in such
fulness of detail as you may deem proper. If we transfer Miss Sanders it must be very soon and
as the Mission can only reply by cable within the time allotted, we shall need your fuller
explanation. We received your cable of April 26* from Seoul, stating that the trial before the
Supreme Court [in the Conspiracy Case] had been completed and that judgment had been
reserved. We are anxiously awaiting the decision.
With warm regards, I remain, as ever.
Affectionately yours,
A.J. Brown
(PerK)
(from the microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, P.C.U.S.A., Presbyterian
Historical Society, Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #6, Record Group 140-4-21)
Nearing San Francisco
May31, 1913
Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
We shall reach San Francisco on Monday, June 2"“* and I expect to remain in San Rafael,
California until the first of July, going on to Madison, Indiana for a part of the month of July and
then returning to San Rafael until we return to Korea early in August.
I should like to know where your plans will take you during the month of July and also
whether you wish me to go on from Madison, Indiana to New York to see you then.
I have not yet heard what was the judgment of the Supreme Court [in the Conspiracy
Case] but am hoping to hear in San Francisco.
Address me please -
614 Fifth Avenue
San Rafael, California
With most cordial greetings.
Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series H, Reel #3, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #57)
San Francisco, California
June 9, 1913
Will C. Wallace
TO the STOCKHOLDERS of the YUBA CONSOLIDATED GOLD MINING COMPANY;
The management of the Company has been forced to levy an assessment of One Cent per
share upon the outstanding capital stock of the Company, of which notice is sent you herewith.
The immediate occasion of this assessment, is the balance due Mr. J.H. Hunt upon the
promissory note of the Company, secured by a mortgage of all of its property. This note has been
overdue and unpaid as to this balance, for four years, and has been allowed to run to the legal
limit, through the kindness and consideration of Mr. Hunt, who has been unwilling to press for
payment while the Company has been financially embarrassed, and unable to protect itself
In fact, Mr. Hunt even now refrains from at once enforcing his claims and taking the
property in satisfaction, upon the promise of the management that the money to pay him and to
save the property, will be forthwith raised by the stockholders through this assessment.
If the stockholders respond as they ought, and pay their respective proportions, as called
for by this assessment, the property can be cleared: otherwise, it must be wholly lost, and with it
all of the money already invested. In a word, by adding another cent per share upon your
holdings, you will save the many cents per share which those holdings have cost you, and you
will have other and very good chances to realize the profits you have so long expected. There are
parties now ready and waiting to lease and bond parts of the property, upon royalties very
favorable to the Company: but nothing else can be done by us until we first raise the money to
pay off this mortgage. Still other parties are about th make critical examination of our holdings,
with a view to furnishing ample working capital for all our future needs, in exchange for stock:
but, unless this assessment be met so that the mortgage can be lifted, we will cease to own the
property, and they must make their arrangements with some other owner.
This is the VERY CRISIS of our experiences: if we can meet and survive it, the rest will
be comparatively easy. We can meet it, and can survive it easily, if you, the stockholders, will
each do your part and do it promptly. There is no alternative to paying this assessment, except
the early and final loss of the whole property, and the dissolution of the Company. Therefore, we
of the management hope and believe that you will join us in one last and effective effort to place
the property in a safe position, and in line to profit by the present remarkable revival of interest in
Californian gold mining properties.
We can add, with satisfaction, that since levying this assessment we have learned from
several of the larger stockholders that they will pay their pro ratas promptly, and we feel safe in
saying that at least one-half of the assessment is already assured to us. Do not be backward in
protecting your own interest in the Company and its immensely valuable property.
By order of the Board of Directors:
Will C. Wallace,
Secretary
San Francisco, Cal. June 9, 1913
[Charles Hull Fish, father of Alice Fish Moffett, M.D., was a stockholder in this company]
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers)
Andong, Korea
June 16, 1913
Sadie N. Welbon
Dear Dr. Brown:
I am writing you concerning a school teacher who is ready to come out to teach our
family of children, Miss Olive Pierpont. Her home when we met her was in Santa Barbara
[California] where we lived next door to her for three months and saw also something of her
school work.
Since our furlough she has been left alone by an aunt’s death and is now at her sister’s
home in White Plains, New York. Miss Pierpont used to be one of our secretaries in Presbyterial
work and comes from a fine old Presbyterian family.
We are ready to make any sacrifice to get a teacher here in Andong but we cannot do it
alone and it will require at least $500 per year besides what we ourselves are able to do. It either
means this or our home must be broken up very soon if not this fall. I am teaching Henry, who is
not yet nine years old and under age for Pyeng Yang [school] but I cannot give the three younger
children all they need - and baby Alice takes some of my time, too. I would, without a teacher
coming to us here, have to take the children to Pyeng Yang and stay there with them during the
school year. This would break up the home almost as much as the other plan, that of taking the
children, now four years ahead of our furlough, to America.
Our station has been going through a severe strain for months past and as
the heaviest burden of it all has necessarily fallen upon Mr. Welbon we do not feel that he should
be left alone if it’s possible to keep the family here.
I do not feel that I am doing much direct work for the Koreans but I am making it
possible for Mr. Welbon to do more and better work than he might do otherwise.
It’s possible that you might know someone who would be enough interested in this kind
of “home missionary work” to help us raise the funds but that is not the question upon which I
am writing.
Will you send to Miss Pierpont please the names and dates of sailing of our returning
missionaries so that she might come out with some of them? She would, I suppose, likely wish
to sail from San Francisco.
I realize that if she comes at once that there is not much time left for correspondence and
it’s possible that Mr. Welbon will have to send a cable concerning her passage money.
Please address Miss M. Olive Pierpont, 29 Church St., White Plains, New York. I am
writing her that she will hear from you concerning list of missionaries and sailing dates.
Remember me please to Mrs. Brown.
With kindest regards from Mr. Welbon and myself,
Sadie N. Welbon (Mrs. A.G.)
(from microfilm records. Board of Foreign Missions, PCUSA, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Reel #3, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #89)
Taiku, Korea
June 23, 1913
James E. Adams
(XXIII) LETTER OF J.E.A. TO A.J.B.
My Dear Dr. Brown;-
In the meeting of the Educational Senate, held June 19*, a question was raised on that
passage in Mission Letter No. 145, a copy of which was enclosed with the copy of the Joint
Committee’s letter which you sent me as Secretary of the Senate, where you speak of the reasons
which led our Board and our representatives on the Joint Committee to endorse the Seoul
location for the college. You say:
“We were therefore confronted in our own Board with the necessity of agreeing to go to
Seoul or of abandoning altogether the idea of one union college and of having a Presbyterian
college in Pyeng Yang and Methodist college in Seoul. It became absolutely clear - that our
Board believes that one union college is more important than the question of location.”
The Joint Committee’s letter takes very high ground on the “one college only”
proposition. It repudiates the two college proposition as an impossible one, which neither the
members of the Committee nor any of the Boards concerned will consent to consider. It is not an
alternative even to be reached. In view of the strong position taken on this point, I cannot but
admire the frank courage with which you state the considerations that influenced our Board and
representatives on the Joint Committee, to vote in a way that you knew was contrary to the
almost unanimous conviction of your Mission. This frank setting forth of the reasons to us, in
recognition, that as a party in the question, we also have such interests involved, as to make
necessary that the reasons should be made known, goes a long way toward reconciling us to your
position. Considerations of expediency, the surrender of a lesser for the attainment of a greater,
are often the determining considerations in a decision.
That is to say they may be, if no principle is involved. Unfortunately, in the present case,
a very fundamental principle is involved. All parties are agreed that the question ought have
been settled upon the field. An unwilling minority, however, insisted upon a reference. The
majority gave way and consented, but upon the explicit agreement that the question should be
referred as a perfectly open question, quite capable of settlement for all parties in either of its
alternatives; that it should be decided by the referee committee upon its merits; in view of the
field conditions that in the mind of the Committee ought to determine in the case. You can
readily see that no other basis of agreement to reference was possible. A question to be capable
of reference must be an open question, and the referee must settle it on the basis of the referring
parties’ agreement.
The Senate at the above mentioned meeting took the following action. As I remember it
was unanimous - representatives of all Missions agreeing to it.
Passed, that Dr. Adams be requested to write to Dr. Brown, drawing his attention to the
passage in Board Letter No. 145, a copy of which was sent the General Secretary, and asking for
an interpretation of the same. If it means that the Northern Presbyterian Board was influenced in
its position because there was no alternative to a Union College in Seoul, except a Presbyterian
College in Pyeng Yang and a Methodist College in Seoul, the Senate wishes to state that this
does not represent the sense in which the question was referred, but that either location is to be
considered as an open alternative for all parties.”
I apprehend that your frank statement of reasons, indicates some little restiveness on your
own part at the situation, and your insistence upon the referendum is a recognition of the
principle spoken of above, and a determination that the actual field facts that should be
determinative shall be elicited before the decision is made final. No exception can be taken by
any fairminded man to the position taken in your letter to me, to the effect that while you have
your personal preference as to location, officially you will strongly support the location which is
favored by the majority of all the missionaries concerned. That is my own position as general
secretary of the Educational Senate, on the basis of which I originally insisted upon, and pushed
through, the popular vote on the question first taken by the Senate.
With cordial regards.
Yours in the service of the King,
James E. Adams
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the
CHOSEN [KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of
Definition between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the
administration of FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 63-64.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in
the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Taiku, Korea
June 27, 1913
James E. Adams
(XXI) LETTER OF J.E.A. TO A.J.B.
Rev. A.J. Brown, D.D., Chairman Boards’ Joint Committee on Education in Korea
My Dear Dr. Brown:-
Your favor of the 28“’ of April came to hand in due time, on June 19“’. A special meeting
of the Educational Senate was held and I brought up the question raised in your letter of the
Senate authority on the field. The following action was taken:
“Passed that the General Secretary be instructed to answer Dr. Brown’s inquiry as to the
power of the Senate by saying that all the six Missions have ratified the constitution with the
powers therein delegated, but that the delegation has been limited in the case of the Northern
Presbyterian Mission alone by the Board Letter No. 64, page 3. We would ask an interpretation
of this letter where it requires that actions of the Senate be subject to review and control of the
cooperating Missions. Aside from this the authority of the Senate is final on the field. We also
request the Secretary to point out the difficulty of field operation if all the questions are to be
passed on authoritatively by each of the individual Missions which only meet annually.”
I enclose a printed copy of the constitution as passed by the Missions and ratified, I think,
with the exception noted above, by all of the home Boards. Sections 8 and 10 deal with Senate’s
relations and authority in matters of finance. You will see that Section 8 put the responsibility
and authority for the direct financial support, administration and work of each institution in the
hands of the individual mission, the Senate assisting, if the Mission so wishes, on special
occasions and for special purposes. Section 10 directs the Senate to seek to secure and
authorizes it to administer funds for the maintenance and development of the general educational
work under its care which work is designated in Sections 1- 4 of the same Article. In pursuance
of the meaning of Sections 8 and 10, of Article 5, the Senate in making out the financial
estimates which were sent to the Joint Committee as representing what was needed for the
further “development of the general Christian educational work in Korea under its care,”
carefully deducted the value of the present plants and the amount of present income. These
already belonged to the individual mission. It was also recognized that any administration by the
Senate of the funds secured must be general. Section 8 clearly placing limitations on using this
matter. The Senate considers that in the matter of the estimates presented the authority of the
Senate is final so far as the field is concerned, and so far as we know the point has never been
questioned here.
You apply the same inquiry to the Senates’ authority in referring the one college location
question to the Joint Committee. Is the Senates’ authority final on the fields? It may be
answered “Yes” and “No”. You will observe that Article 5, Section 4, of the Constitution,
subscribed to by all the Missions, places absolutely, this authority in the hands of the Senate.
There is no qualification, and no exception except the one quoted above of the North
Presbyterian Mission Board action. The North Methodist at its annual meeting of 1912 first set
the “one college and that in Seoul,” ball rolling. Its action, as given you in a former
communication, explicitly excludes authoritative action on the part of the Senate, and provided
that unless practical unanimity was found among the Missions, it should be referred to America.
In the October meeting of the Senate of the same year, the resolutions introduced were, I
understand, two fold, endorsing the one college proposition, and providing for determining
6/27/1913 - p. 2 J.E.A.
whether it should be in Seoul or Pyeng Yang. The first was adopted and the second rejected.
The Mission representing the bulk of the missionary interests on the field having already taken
action endorsing the present location, their representatives on the Senate, exercising the Senate’s
authority, refused to open Pandora’s box.
At the January [handwritten note saying that it was December, p. 55] meeting of the
Senate the matter was again introduced, and its members were made acquainted with the fact that
the Cabinet of the North Methodist Mission, then sitting in session, had taken action to the effect
that unless the Senate at that meeting consented to make some provision in the matter, the
Mission would withdraw its educators from the Pyeng Yang institution and center them in Seoul.
The Senate had full authority delegated to it by all the participating Missions, (with the one
exception noted) but it became manifest that to exercise it, was to run itself upon the rocks, right
in the beginning of its usefulness. It stood for many other important interests beside the one
college question and therefore it was considered wiser to give way and refer the question. The
Senate therefore in view of this, feels, while nominally referring the question with full field
authority, really refers it with such field authority as it is able to exercise. If the exercise of the
authority delegated it, had been freely conceded, there would have been no need of a reference. It
could easily have been settled on the field, not only did a Senate majority of 7 to 5, and the
Missions representing two-thirds of the missionary interests of the country favor the present
location, but as was then contended, and has been lately demonstrated in the Senate’s popular
vote, practically a two-thirds majority of the missionary body also stood for the present location.
The popular vote in the missionary body on the question of the one college location,
which was decided upon by the Senate at its March meeting, before the Joint Committee’s action
was known, was completed about the time the Committee’s recommendation arrived. The
number of possible voters was 128. It was limited to men not less than one year on the field, 109
voted. Those who favored Seoul were 38. The rest voted for the present location.
In view of the request of the Joint Committee, however, that a vote of the Missionary
body should be taken with the recommendation of the committee before the voter which should
be made the official vote it was decided to take a second vote. That vote is now being taken in
response to the committees’ request.
The action of the Senate in the matter, at its recent meeting, was as follows:
Whereas the Joint Committee in America to which the question was referred, has
requested that a popular vote be taken on the question, with the recommendation of the
committee before the voter.
Resolved, that we a second time put the question to a vote in the missionary body as
follows:
1 . The vote shall be confined to the male members of the missions who have been on the
field not less than one year.
2. All votes must be in the hands of the Secretary within one month of the time they are
sent out by him.
3. The vote shall be on the following questions:
(1) On the hypothesis of one arts college for the entire country as between Seoul
and Pyeng Yang, where do you personally think that a college will best secure for the entire
country those ends which as Missionary workers we seek in collegiate education.
6/27/1913 - p.3 J.E.A.
(2) Do you believe in two colleges rather than one only at Pyeng Yang?
(3) Do you believe in two colleges rather than one only at Seoul?
4. A copy of the Joint Committee’s letter shall be submitted with the voting form to each
voter, also a supplementary statement on behalf of either location, if so desired, by one whom the
Senate may authorize.
5. The General Secretary of the Senate shall receive the votes, tabulate them, and submit
a copy of the tabulation to the Senate members, each of the Missions and to the Joint Committee.
When the results of this vote are in I will forward the same to you for the Committee.
Yours in the service,
James E. Adams
It should be said that the Executive Committee of the North Presbyterian Mission subsequent to
the reference, filed notice with the Senate that it had exceeded its authority in making the
decision final in that the Board of that Mission had reserved finally of decision to itself, so far as
its interests were concerned. (Board Letter No. 64, page — .)
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the
CHOSEN [KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of
Definition between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the
administration of FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 60-61.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in
the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Madison, Indiana
July?, 1913
Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
In accordance with your suggestion as to date for my visit to New York I plan to leave
here on next Monday, July 14* and will have the 15* & 16* available for any conferences,
expecting to return the night of the 16* or morning of the 17*.
I have just received your letter enclosing the copy of the one to the Mission concerning
the College Question. It was forwarded to me from San Rafael. It had not reached Korea before
I had left for America.
I trust that even yet you in New York will see the College Question in the light that the
majority of the missionaries in Korea see it and that the character of the work in Korea may be
conserved. However, I can say more when I see you than I care to write just now.
Very sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
(from the microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, P.C.U.S.A., Presbyterian
Historical Society, Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #6, Record Group 140-4-21)
New York, New York
July 25, 1913
Arthur Judson Brown
Dr. Samuel A. Moffett
Madison, Indiana
My dear Dr. Moffett:
I think of our conference last Tuesday, the 22"'', with mingled gratification and regret.
There were so many anxieties that had to be discussed that there was little opportunity for
conference upon those pleasanter subjects which were also in our hearts and concerning which
we would have been glad to speak. It seemed too bad that the only day that you could spend in
New York during this hurried trip to America had to be so largely given up to perplexing
problems, rather than to the joys of congenial fellowship.
And I am not sure even now that we succeeded in making our position clear; for you of
course understood that I was discussing the questions at issue in a representative capacity,
knowing the position of others as well as my own, and feeling under special obligation to speak
of the things that had led Mr. Severance to ask that the conference be arranged for. You and I
appeared to be speaking with different objects in mind and therefore there was special danger
that we might misunderstand one another. You were arguing for Pyeng Yang as the location of
the College, and perhaps you thought that I was arguing for Seoul. I had, however, no such
thought. I was arguing for harmony among the missionaries in Korea, for a frank referendum to
them of questions on which they are fairly entitled to an opinion, and for loyal acceptance of the
result when known. We are concerned here by an apparent disposition on the part of some
members of our own Mission, on both sides of the controversy, not to consider the College
location question in that way, but to discuss it with an undue intensity of feeling and in language
which seems to portend a refusal to accept an adverse decision of the majority if it shall be
contrary to their judgment; or, if not a refusal, at least a lack of co-operation which would be fatal
to the enterprise and seriously harmful in other directions.
We are aware that the Mission voted to put union and location together as inseparable, as
you explained and as some letters had emphasized. But the Boards and their Joint Committee
feel that a distinction should be observed between them; that one of six parties to a union should
not prejudge a question which from the nature of the case calls for joint action; that if we are
going into a union at all, we should go with a willingness to discuss such a question as location
with those who have as much right to an opinion on it as we have, and feeling that the way is
clear to decide the issue on the merits of the case. All whom I have heard express a judgment in
this country are emphatic in their conviction that the question of a union Christian College for
Korea is very much larger than the question of location, and that any place that the missionaries
in Korea may decide upon would be far better for the cause of Christ than no college. The
Boards are not forcing the question of location in favor of any one station. I doubt whether they
or the Joint Committee would have said anything officially on the subject if the Missions
themselves had not compelled them to do so. And even then, the Joint Committee and the
Boards expressed only a tentative opinion subject to another vote on the field. The missionaries
themselves therefore have a chance to put the College where they want it.
7/25/1913 - p.2 S.A.M.
And when 1 say missionaries, I, of course, mean the whole body of missionaries in Korea.
Our Mission voted to go into a Union College, and asked the Board to approve its doing so.
Having gone into a union, we should carry into it the union spirit - an open mind, a willingness to
abide by majority votes on questions which a majority alone can decide, a readiness to accept not
only our full share of responsibility but also our full share of risk. We cannot carry one Mission
as a distinct entity into a union of six Missions and Boards, and then repudiate union if the
majority of those with whom we have voluntarily associated ourselves does not coincide with a
majority in our particular Mission. Union means that mission and board lines are obliterated for
the purpose of the union and that all concerned become one common body. Of course, this
would not be true if we were dealing with bad men or a worldly object, but this is a union among
Christian men of presumably equal intelligence and equal devotion to the cause of Christ.
To say, as some of our missionaries have said, that it is the will of God that the Union
College should be in Pyeng Yang, is to beg the question. The will of God is precisely what we
are trying to ascertain by prayer and study and consultation with our brethren. When that
consultation is in progress, is it fair for the advocates of one side to claim in advance that their
position alone represents God, and thus imply that equally devoted Christian brethren are,
however unconsciously, fighting against God?
We did not ask you to come to New York for conference because we deemed you
particularly responsible for the unfortunate situation in the Mission. I fear from what you said
that you may have gotten that impression. I think one member of the Board did have some
misgivings on this subject; but everyone else whom I have heard express an opinion recognizes
the fact that the responsibility must be divided between several men on both sides. You were
called upon because you were the only one of these men on either side that is now in America
available for conference; and as you are the official head of the Mission and the leader of its
dominant party, it was natural for us to appeal to you to use your very great influence to bring
about a state of mind more in accord with the spirit of union and co-operation among the various
bodies of missionaries. If Dr. Underwood had been in this country instead of you, he would have
been invited to a conference in precisely the same way, and I should have urged him to use his
influence to acquiesce in a majority vote for Pyeng Yang if given, just as I urged you to use your
influence to acquiesce in a majority vote for Seoul if it should be given. We thoroughly
understand that your leadership in the Mission is in no sense whatever the result of your
planning, but that it is solely due to the confidence of your fellow workers in your wisdom,
devotion and experience. That confidence I strongly share. Indeed, I seriously thought at one
time of publicly advising the Mission to elect you to your present position, and I refrained only
because I became sure that the Mission would in due time elect you anyway, and that it would be
better to have it come about in that way. But we who read the letters which come from all parts
of Korea have ground for real distress as we note the polemic spirit which some of them indicate
- a certain intolerance of mind, an apparent inability to realize that fellow-missionaries may differ
with them and yet possibly be guided by the spirit of God as well as themselves. I need not tell
you, of all men, what formidable problems and anxieties the whole cause of Christ now faces in
Korea - anxieties in some cases created and in other cases intensified by an inrushing tide of
worldliness and materialism, the strain that had developed between the missionaries and the
Japanese authorities, the special problems that grow out of the very success of the work, and, in
general, the new conditions which are bringing the Korean Church and the missionaries to a
severer testing than they have yet known. Surely at such a time as this we all need to stand
together in loving faith and effort and prayer, and it would be most lamentable if at this period of
7/25/1913 - p. 3 S.A.M.
extraordinary emergency, the Adversary of Souls were to sow the seeds of distrust and disunion
among the very Christian workers whom we - and surely we may say whom God - is depending
upon to meet the new conditions aright.
And thus you see, my dear Dr. Moffett, it is neither Seoul nor Pyeng Yang that we are
now thinking of. We shall undoubtedly think of one or the other when the vote of the
missionaries is known, as it doubtless will be in the near future; and we must then consider what
the Joint Committee and the Boards ought to do. But it is certain that, whichever way the
majority goes, there will be a large minority; and whether that minority, either for Seoul or Pyeng
Yang, will accept the result in a Christian spirit and throw itself with a whole-hearted devotion
into the common cause - that is the question which is troubling us and which the correspondence
from Korea, as well as some things that you yourself said the other day, give us some cause for
being troubled about. Strong men on both sides have become so deeply stirred that strife will be
engendered unless earnest effort is made to avert it.
It is very hard, in one sense, to write in this way to you, my dear Doctor; and yet in
another sense it is easy. I regard you as one of my closest friends and most trusted advisers on
the foreign field. I have felt very closely drawn to you, and I am eager to have our relations
become those of still closer fellowship.
We are grateful to you for taking the time and the trouble to make the long, hot and dusty
journey to New York at this season. May God bless you as you return to your great work! You
have a great opportunity, and I lovingly pray that our Father in Heaven may give you abundant
grace for it.
And so I subscribe myself as always, and never more than now.
Affectionately yours,
Arthur J. Brown
{bovci Presentation of Difficulties which have arisen in the Chosen [Korea] Mission of the Presbyterian
Church in U.S.A, because of a Lack of Definition between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the
administration of Field Work, by S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, printed for private use and not
for publication, pp. 30-33. Photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin
Moffett papers. Original in the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania)
New York, New York
July 29, 1913
Arthur Judson Brown
To the Korea Mission:
Dear Friends:-
We had a very interesting conference with the Rev. Dr. Samuel A. Moffett, Chairman of
your Executive Committee, in the Board Room July 22"“^, and various matters of importance
relating to your work and problems were discussed. Among other things, he called our attention
to the fact that Board letter No. 157 of June IS* duplicated a former action, and that it did not
cover one of the subjects in his letter to me of May 2"‘‘ in reply to Board letter No. 130, page 2,
No. 9, of your Executive Committee’s recommendations. The following action was therefore
taken July 25“’:
“The Korea Mission was authorized to turn over the remaining part of the Pyeng Yang Sa
Chang Kol property for the use of the City Primary Schools endowment, it being understood that
the value is approximately 1000 yen less 450 yen to be applied to the purchase of the city wall site
of the Mission compound.”
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brow
(from microfilm Series II, Reel #1, Record Group 140-2-1 (Outgoing Correspondence)
Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Korea Correspondence)
New York, New York
July 30, 1913
Arthur Judson Brown
(XXIII) LETTER FROM BOARD No. 167
In Repower of the Educational Senate
To the Korea Mission and the Educational Senate.
Dear Friends >
The Rev. Dr. James E. Adams, as General Secretary of the Educational Senate, writes me,
under date of June 27*, transmitting and explaining the following action of the Senate at its
meeting June 19*:
“Passed that the General Secretary be instructed to answer Dr. Brown’s inquiry as to the
power of the Senate by saying that all the six Missions have ratified the constitution with the
powers therein delegated, but that the delegation has been limited in the case of the Northern
Presbyterian Mission alone by Board Letter No. 64, page 3. We would ask an interpretation of
this letter where it requires that actions of the Senate be subject to the review and control of the
cooperating Missions. Aside from this the authority of the Senate is final on the field. We also
request the Secretary to point out the difficulty of field operation if all the questions are to be
passed on authoritatively by each of the individual Missions which only meet annually.”
The question of the Senate is a very natural one and yet one that it is difficult to answer.
Indeed, I doubt whether it is possible to limit with mathematical accuracy the precise powers of a
Committee as distinguished from the powers of the body or bodies that appointed it. Two
extremes are to be avoided.
One is the extreme of requiring that actions of the Senate are not to be deemed valid
unless they are ratified by the six cooperating Missions in Korea and the six cooperating Boards
at home. If the Mission and the Educational Senate have placed this construction upon the action
of our Board, to which Dr. Adams refers, we promptly wish to correct it. Such a position would
destroy the efficiency of the Educational Senate and involve such an amount of red tape which
would be worthy of the traditional Circumlocution Office. One is reminded of the strict rules of
the medieval Spanish Court regarding the persons who had authority to touch a member of the
royal family, so that when a baby prince fell into the fire he was badly burned because the
numerous servants in the room did not include one of those who had authority to touch the royal
person. The Educational Senate, like other committees, has presumably been appointed in the
interest of efficiency and efficiency would be impossible under any such interpretation of our
Board’s position.
The other extreme is to regard the Educational Senate when once constituted as virtually
independent of the Missions and the Boards, so that it has power to do almost anything that it
desires to do. Our Board feels that this alternative is quite as undesirable as the other. It would
be especially objectionable in educational matters. One of the most solemn duties and
responsibilities of the Missions and Boards is the training of the youths who are to form the
future ministry and laity of the church. The Boards and Missions have neither the moral nor the
legal right to abdicate that responsibility and turn it over to a body of men who could adopt any
policy they pleased without being considered amenable to the Boards and the Missions. It is not
a question of confidence in the particular men who, for the time, constitute that Senate. Even the
7/30/1913 - p.2 A.J.B.
best men sometimes do unwise things, while we must have regard not only to present
membership but to a future membership. It was because our Board believed that the first draft of
the constitution of the Educational Foundation, which was submitted to the Board, adopted this
extreme view, however unintentionally and virtually made the Senate once constituted
independent of both the Boards and the Mission; it was because of this construction, I say, the
Board took the action that it did. Painful experience in several other fields has shown that the
tendency of large educational institutions is apt to be centrifugal to the Missions and Boards
which develop them unless they are kept in very close and vital relations with the Missions and
Boards. While the Board therefore, deemed it necessary to guard this point, it did not intend to
swing clear over to the other extreme.
You will understand, therefore, why I said at the beginning that it is difficult, if not
impossible, to draw a line which shall delimit with mathematical precision the respective
functions of the Educational Senate in relation to the Missions and the Boards. It seems to us
that there must be a kind of twilight zone here in which each side must trust the other. The
attitude of the Board toward the University Council of the Shantung Christian University may be
used as an illustration. The University Council has been in existence for a number of years and is
the Field Board of Managers for one of our largest and best educational enterprises. It is
composed of members elected by the cooperating Missions and it is amenable to the Boards at
home. As a matter of fact, however, while our Board receives the minutes of the University
Council just as it receives the minutes of the Mission meeting it is not our custom to take action
on anything that does not directly and in an important way involve the responsibilities of the
Board at home. We leave that University Council a very large measure of discretion in handling
its problems.
The same principle governs the relations of the Board to the Missions. Theoretically the
Board has complete power, practically the Board proceeds upon the supposition that a Mission is
composed of wise and able and devoted missionaries who should be given the largest possible
measure of discretion in handling their local problems and work, and that the Board should not
over-rule a Mission even when it disagrees with it, unless the matter is one on which it is
necessary for the Board to act. If you will eliminate actions of the Korea Mission which call for
money which the Board is expected to provide and on which, therefore, it must of course decide
whether it can provide it, and if you will also eliminate questions which the Mission itself asks
the Board to decide, I think you will find that the Board passes on an exceedingly small
proportion of your Mission actions. Even in the case of some questions that you have referred to
the Board I have repeatedly advised the Board to acquiesce in the Mission action for which I
would not have voted if I had been on the field, because as I have explained to the Board many a
time, while the Mission action does not impress us as desirable, nevertheless, it does not affect
the responsibilities or expenditures of the Board and as the missionaries on the field are the ones
directly concerned by it and as they are good men and women who presumably have had reasons
for their actions, which may not have appeared in the correspondence, I think the Board should
not interfere.
Can we not treat the Educational Senate in substantially the same way? It is composed of
very able, experienced and representative missionaries. Let us trust them and not insist that
everything that they do must have the specific endorsement of six different bodies on the field
and six different bodies at home. On the other hand, we must, of course, reserve our right in the
interest of the general cause to intervene when some large and vital question is involved on
7/30/1913 - p.3 AJ.B.
which we may justly have a voice. Mutual consideration and forbearance should certainly
prevail in a matter of this kind.
This may not be a very satisfactory answer to the question of the Educational Senate but I
hardly know what else 1 could write. I shall be glad to discuss the matter further if either the
Mission or the Senate desires me to do so.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from Presentation of Difficulties which have arisen in the Chosen [Korea] Mission of the Presbyterian
Church in U.S.A. because of a Lack of Definition between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the
administration of Field Work, by S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, printed for private use and not
for publication, pp. 64 - 66. Photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin
Moffett papers. Original in the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania)
AUSTRALIAN PRESBYTERIAN
CANADIAN PRESBYTERIAN
METHODIST EPISCOPAL IN U.S.A.
FEDERATED MISSIONS
SENATE OF
THE EDUCATIONAL FEDERATION
MET H. EPISC. SOUTH, U.S.A.
NORTHERN PRESBYTERIAN, U.S.A.
SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN, U.S.A.
OF
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN KOREA
REV. JAMES E. ADAMS, GENERAL SECRETARY
Taiku, Korea
August 13, 1913
James E. Adams
Rev. A.J. Brown, D.D., Chairman of Boards’ Joint Commission on Education in Korea
Dear Dr. Brown:-
After the reference of the College Location Question to your Joint Committee by the Educational
Senate, the Senate decided to take a popular vote on the question in the missionary body of the six
federated missions. The question voted upon was as follows, and was limited to male missionaries on the
field, with a residence here of not less than one year:
“As between Seoul and Pyongyang, where do YOU personally think that a college will best
secure for the entire country those ends which as missionary workers we seek in collegiate education.”
There were 128 eligible voters. Of these, 109 voted; of these, 38 voted in favor of Seoul and 71
in favor of Pyongyang.
About the time this vote was completed, the communication from your Committee
recommending the Seoul location, giving your reasons for the same, and making a referendum to the
missionary body by means of a popular vote with your letter before the voter, was received. The Senate
held another meeting, and in deference to your request, and to those favoring the Seoul location, directed
that another vote be taken. Your request indicated that you wished a vote of the entire voting body of the
several Missions. There was some discussion upon this point, but, as I remember, the Senate decided
unanimously to adhere to the former limitation. The basis of voting in the several missions varied to such
an extent that uniformity of representation would not have been possible to secure, and it was also
generally thought that the basis on which the former vote had been taken was, after all, the one which
would give the most reliable and so, most satisfactory, returns. It was therefore limited to male
missionaries on the field, of a residence of not less than one year, and the polls to be kept open but one
month from the time the voting forms were sent out. The wording was as follows:
I. “On the hypothesis of one arts college for the entire country, as between Seoul and Pyeng Yang, where
do YOU personally think that a college will best secure for the entire country those ends which as
missionary workers we seek in missionary education?
II. Do you believe in two colleges rather than one only at Pyeng Yang?
III. Do you believe in two colleges rather than one only at Seoul?”
It was felt necessary in the Senate that the second and third questions should be added. When the
Senate referred the matter to your Committee it was distinctly on the basis that either location was a
perfectly possible alternative to all parties in the reference. A reference was possible only on this basis,
and this question alone was referred. We since have had reason to think that another alternative, not
referred by us to your Committee, entered into your Committee’s consideration, and formed no
unimportant factor in the determining of your conclusions. This was the possible alternative of two
colleges. It was felt therefore that if there was any considerable portion of the missionary body holding
this position, it was due to them, and to us, the Senate, as the field organization entrusted with the
common interests of the entire missionary body, and to your Committee, that the facts in the case should
be made definite.
8/13/13 - p.2 J.E.A.
I herewith append a copy of the tally sheet of the vote. I was instructed by the Senate to tabulate
the returns in such way as give you the information of the vote in as evident form as possible.
This vote was taken at a time of year when many of the eligible voters might be not easily
accessible. Some who voted before have gone on furlough and so are ruled out. There were 121 voters
eligible according to the voting conditions. Exactly 100 voted. Of these, 37 voted for Seoul. The
remainder voted for Pyeng Y ang. I have not received the votes of 2 1 . 1 have learned that some voters
from among these on both sides never received the voting form. Some have said that they received it and
returned their vote at once, but 1 never received it. Both, doubtless, have been due to inefficient mail
service. I have no means of knowing what their votes would be, but in the previous vote, of which 1 have
spoken, of these 21 there were three who voted for Seoul, eight who voted for Pyeng Yang, and ten who
did not vote either time. You can use your discretion about these. The official vote is the one given
above. Tabulated according to Missions
it stands as follows:
Eligible Number Voting
Voting
II & III
II & III
IIAff
IINeg
II & III
for
for
Both
Both
and
and
Decline
Seoul
Pyongyang
Neg.
Aff
IIINeg.
IIIAff
to vote
Mission
voters
voting
M.E.
22
20
19
1
11
0
1
0
8
M.E. (South)
14
10
8
2
3
2
0
1
4
C.P.
10
6
3
3
6
0
0
0
0
N.P.
44
40
5
35
14
5
1
17
2
S.P.
22
17
1
16
9
0
0
7
1
A.P.
9
7
1
6
3
0
0
4
0
121
100
37
63
46
7
2
29
15
It will be seen from this that out of the 100 voters there was a majority of 63 to 37 favoring the
Pyeng Yang location on the referendum of the question which your Committee made to the missionary
body. Of these, 46 stood for one college as more important than location; 7 favored two colleges under
any circumstances; 2, while favoring one college at Seoul believed in two rather than one only at Pyeng
Yang; 29, while believing in one college at Pyeng Yang, stood for two rather than one only at Seoul; and
15 declined to define their position upon the two college alternative. The relation of the various positions
to the membership of the different Missions may be seen by a glance at the table. The weight of the vote
for Seoul, the bulk of the vote one may say, is in the two Methodist Missions, although half of those so
voting say they put one college ahead of the question of location, and but one favors two colleges rather
than one only at Pyeng Yang. Yet it is in these two missions that 12 out of the 15 so voting, decline to
define their position on this point. The votes of the Canadian Mission are equally divided, and are
unanimous for one college. The weight of the vote for Pyeng Yang is in the three other Presbyterian
Missions, and is there almost unanimous, 64 to 7. Something less than half put the desirability of one
college ahead of the question of location; 29 stand for two colleges rather than one only at Seoul; and but
3 have failed to define their position on this point.
It will be not only of interest, but of profit to your Committee to know how this vote is distributed
geographically in the distribution of Mission work over the country. The missionary work of the country
naturally divides itself into three sections geographically: South, Central, North. Politically also, it
divides itself this way, and socially. The conformation of the country makes it easy. Politically, Seoul is
the center of the country; it is also the center of what we term the Central section. Pyeng Yang is in the
southern part of what we term the Northern section, although geographically it is about the same distance
from the extreme northern limit that it is from the extreme southern limit of the country.
Tabulated geographically the vote stands as follows:
8/13/13 - p.3 J.E.A.
Vote on College
Southern Section
Population
No. of Christians
Seoul
Pyeng Yang
S.P. Mission
15,368
1
16
N.P. Mission
17,847
2
10
A.P. Mission
7,170
1
6
Total:
5,459,281
40,285
"32
Central Section
M.E. Mission
32,673
13
0
M.E.(South) Mission
6,817
7
1
N.P. Mission
10,075
3
5
Total:
3,573,364
49,565
Northern Section
M.E. Mission
15,695
6
1
M.E.(South) Mission
2,242
1
0
N.P. Mission
68,566
0
20
C.P. Mission
9,588
3
3
Total:
4,052,760
96,091
You will see from the above tabulation that the strength of the vote for the Seoul location is in the
Central Section - Seoul, itself and the territory immediately tributary to it. Outside of this area the voters
of the entire country, whether South or North, stand for the Pyeng Yang location in a ratio of 4 to 1 (56 to
14), and it is these sections that hold the population (9,512,041 to 3,573,364) and the Christian
constituency (136,376 to 49,565) in a ratio of practically 3 to 1 as compared with the Central Section. In
the Central Section itself, those voters opposed to the location of the institution there, are in a proportion
of 1 to 3 (8 to 23), as compared with those favoring it.
It will also be of profit to your Committee to have before you the tabulation of the vote relative to
the mission interests of the country as held by the respective Missions, and brought by them to the
proposed pool of the union work. This is shown in the table below. The statistics for each Mission, with
the exception of those for population, are taken from their published reports. They are divided and
assigned to Seoul or Pyeng Yang in the ratio of the vote of that Mission’s members. Your committee will
be concerned only with the final column.
[Table of statistics omitted here, but Mr. Adams goes on as follows to analyze what the table revealed]
The last column shows that those endorsing the Seoul location represent 30.2% of the population
as against 68.8% for Pyongyang. They represent 32.6% of the total communicant membership of the
Church, as against 67.4% for Pyongyang; 33.5% of the over 700 boys’ primary schools of the country as
against 66.5%: something less than 42.6% of the scholars in those schools, as against 57.4%; and 32% of
the academy students of the country, as against 68%.
If calculated on the basis of Missions instead of an individual vote, the ratios are somewhat more
unfavorable to Seoul.
We have appreciated the strong position taken by your Committee on the point of but one
institution. We thoroughly agree with you that the question of location is one that ought to be settled by
the voice of the missionary body on the field. We have appreciated greatly the course you have pursued
8/13/13 - p.4 J.E.A.
of seeking to ascertain this point, and, if clear, making it determinative. It appears from this vote, that in
answer to your Committee’s referendum on the question of the location of the one union college for the
country, the missionary body, by a very large majority (whether of votes polled, geographical
distribution, or vested interests brought to the union) states its position as that of endorsing the Pyengyang
location.
This completes the report which I was instructed by the Senate to prepare and forward to your
Committee, immediately on the closing of the poll.
The cheerful concession, and acquiescence in, the principle of majority rule is so fundamental and
so evidently essential to the success of any cooperative undertaking; the fact that the present vote would
seem so decisive on this point; and the further fact that of the 37 voting for Seoul, 29 either failed to
express themselves on this point, or definitely stated that they believed in one college wherever located,
encourages me to think that the suggestion made in your Committee’s letter is a feasible one, and that “an
effort at compromise, led by the Educational Senate, may be successful.’’ To this end I am writing the
members of the Senate, proposing that a statement of the results of the vote be prepared and sent to the
members of the minority by the Senate, and that an appeal be made to them, in view of the results of the
vote, to concede the will of the majority. I hope shortly to be able to write you favorably of the result.
Believe me, with every prayer for the guidance of your Committee,
Yours in the Service of the King,
James E. Adams
(photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyengyang, Korea August 17, 1913 [excerpts] Belle S. Luckett
Dear Sweet boy, [excerpts of a letter written to her grown son shortly after her arrival in
Pyengyang to be a matron of the Pyengyang Foreign School dormitory]
1 have been reading several books on Korea. 1 am going to make a study of this land if I
can get some histories. The Japanese do not allow the Koreans to read their own history. They
have things in their iron grasp and even Americans are sent out of the country if they say things
the Japs don’t like. One of our leading missionary wives, Mrs. Dr. Underwood, who is
publishing a little “Mission Field” magazine, was told she was under arrest in her own house for
saying something in her paper about the treatment and trial of the Koreans who were said to have
been in a conspiracy. It does not matter where you go there is the Jap knowing all about
everything you say and do
I tell you, dear, this is the land where you ^ and feel the very presence of God. And
you realize that he is right there beside you listening and helping
It is the custom in all these missionary homes to have the servants come in to the family
prayers. They sing a hymn and read the Bible and then pray, each taking turns each day. It is a
wonderful sweet service all in Korean. I am going to have my servants sing and pray with me. I
can teach them the tunes, at least
The term “grandmother” in Korea is one of even greater respect than “mother”. The
other day a Korean asked the Mowrys who the “grandmother” was who was at their house!
They seldom have really gray hair but they admire it very much and will stand and stare at my
gray hair and smile at me in the kindest way. And then when they find I am the “mother of
sons” they consider me a woman of great honor
We expect Dr. Moffett back any day now. We can’t settle some things until he
comes
Mrs. Mowry is just a dear. She is a lovely sort of woman. She was an only child and
misses her mother. She has a lovely baby.
Deep love.
Mother
(letters of Mrs. Belle S. Luckett, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.)
Andong, Chosen, Japan
August 18, 1913
Arthur G. Welbon
The Rev. A.J. Brown, D.D.
156 Fifth Avenue
New York City, U.S.A.
My dear Dr. Brown:
Your letter of July 16* received a few days ago. I am afraid that our former letters were not
full enough to give you a fair idea of what we planned to do. We certainly intend to do nothing to
hinder the Pyeng Yang School, for we are most heartily in favor of that school. Mr. Gamble [of
Proctor and Gamble], who is most deeply interested in our home and Station has also given one tenth
of all that has been asked in this new request for the P.Y. School. On the other hand we certainly do
not want you or the Board to feel that the establishing of this School in Pyeng Yang solves our
problem. Part of your letter would seem to indicate that you do so feel. Am aft-aid however that
owing to lack of information, you are speaking in general terms, and not to the specific case in view.
Perhaps I cannot do better than to describe just how our present plan was developed. Like all
missionaries with families the problem of educating our children has ever been before us, but we have
tried not to let it worry us unduly, feeling all the time that God would open up the way He would have
us take, the same as we believe He has done in the past. Two years ago when our eldest child was
seven we felt something had to be done, and discovered the Calvert Correspondence School of
Baltimore, which promised to meet the need, so have tried it for the past two years. It is a great tax
however on Mrs. Welbon’s time and strength, so much so that I greatly feared a break-down.
Something else had to be tried. Three ways were open, viz, with permission from the proper
authorities, she could take the children to the U.S. and put them in school there, or we could get
permission to temporarily reside in Pyengyang so that the children could attend there, I spending
practically all my time here looking after the work, or we could get someone from the States to teach
them here. The possibility of sending three young children to the P.Y. School in its present condition
never entered our minds. I am aware that children as young as ours, have been and are, being sent
away to school long distances from home; but the school has a thoroughly equipped corps of teachers
and matrons, suitable buildings and equipment, large attendance and a good climate. Now what have
we in P.Y.? One teacher, granted that she is thoroughly equipped, no one knows how long she will
stay, a matron just arriving on the field, with no previous experience, though said to be a very capable
woman, buildings with scarcely any equipment which are a menace to the life and health of every
child not under the constant care of a watchful mother, small attendance which will necessarily be so
until the plant has been built up and equipped, and a rigorous climate, especially for children from
this southern clime.
The last of the three ways, therefore, appealed most strongly to us if we could get a suitable
teacher and funds for the expense. Mrs. Welbon began correspondence with Miss Pierpont on the
subject, with the result that she consented, so that we feel that we have a suitable teacher, and now
lack only a part of the funds. I say a part of the funds for we would be at extra expense anyway,
whether we sent the children or whether Mrs. Welbon went with them. We know also that children’s
allowance is given to help in their education.
Now when it is only a question of dollars and not very many at that, do you think we would be
justified in breaking up our home, separating parents from children and children from parents and
each other? I am sure you do not think so, nor does anyone on the Board think so, nor any of the
thousands of fnends and supporters of Foreign Missions.
Suppose that we now look at the other side of the problem. What will be gained to the Board,
to the mission, and to the friends of missions if this little plan is carried out. One family will be kept '
in tact, none of the cords severed which would tend to put an extra strain on those remaining. The
8/18/1913 - p.2 A.G.W.
family would be kept in a small isolated station where every member is counted and needed in the life
of that station. The mother’s time would be greatly freed for the work to which she has already given
some fourteen years of service and which greatly needs help. One adult of mature years and
experience would be added to the life of the station, one who is deeply interested in Missions, and
who has a number of friends and relatives to whom she would be constantly sending items of first-
hand news.
Now perhaps I am prejudiced, but it does seem to me that even from a financial point of view
that the Board would be the gainer if our plan were carried out. The $500 was an estimate for all
expenses, and I think it a liberal one. Now, any of the other plans for the education of our children
will I believe cause the Board more of a financial loss in salary than the above amount. Last year we
had an extreme case which illustrates this point in an extreme way. Mr. Sharpe of Chairyung, sent
two of his children to the P.Y. School. They were both taken very ill, so that Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe
both had to leave home and go to them. It was during the Bible Institute session, the most important
time of the year, yet he had to miss it though that work enters largely into his assignment for the year.
They were there for months before the children could be taken home, so that at least one half of their
working year was so interrupted as to be practically useless to the work. Their salary, allowance, etc.
amounts to
[unreadable section]
who will be glad to come out and help us for practically nothing
more than their expenses. Part of this expense be met by the missionary and part by their friends at
home, under Board sanction.
[more arguments supporting the fact that a little outlay will bring large returns]
Such schools as the P.Y. School, will be needed and the better they are equipped the more
good they will do. Do you know that there are nearly three hundred children in Korea, candidates for
that school? Of course most of them are too young, but they will be old enough before the school is
ready to receive them, unless there is a great change in the matter of funds coming in.
Our children staying at home will not reduce the attendance at the P.Y. School, but will leave
room for those of more years and better situate to go. My personal report shows that I have spent one
month of the year just in traveling back and forth to the railroad. If my family were in P.Y. and
needed me it would often take a week under the best of conditions, for me to reach them.
Most stations have had some among its members who has acted the part of teacher to the
young children, because she wanted her own children taught
We are just getting ready to go to Seoul and P.Y. for the Annual Meetings, so I have written
this letter in a great hurry and have not made it as clear as I would like, but trust that you will be able
to see our position a little clearer and will not think that the P.Y. School is going to be injured by this
plan of ours to keep the children with us a few years longer.
Very sincerely yours,
A.G. Welbon
(from microfilm Series II, Reel #3, Record Group 140-3-5, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Korea Correspondence)
Pyengyang, Korea
August 23, 1913 [excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
Dearest Boy,
My home is just one door from Mrs. Mowry’s and right near me is Miss Best and a little ways
down the road Dr. Wells’ home and Dr. Moffett’s and across from him is Mr. McMurtrie, the
kind old Scotch bachelor of the community who has charge of the industrial plant for Korean
boys and who does all sorts of kind things for everyone. He has been in several times to do
jobs for me in his quiet shy way The other night burglars got into one of the houses
where a missionary woman was alone and at 3 o’clock all the phones rang for Mr. McM. You
see we have a party phone and all of them ring for all the calls. I asked Mr. McM if he was the
man to call on when the burglars came. He said 1 was to call on him for anything I needed but
he hoped it wouldn’t be burglars
Dr. Moffett and Miss Fish are not here yet. 1 hope they come soon
With deepest love.
Mother
[The “Miss Fish” referred to is Lucia Fish, a first cousin of Samuel A. Moffett’s first wife, Alice
Fish, who died in July of 1912. Dr. Moffett took his two young sons and went home to
California to visit the bereaved mother of his late wife. Knowing the reputation of Lucia Fish as
an excellent teacher, he succeeded in recruiting her to go out to Pyengyang as a teacher of the
missionary children in the Pyengyang Foreign School.]
(letters of Mrs. Belle S. Luckett, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.)
New York, New York
August 25, 1913
Arthur J. Brown
To the Korea Mission.
Dear Friends:
We have had further correspondence with Dr. W.O. Johnson, who, as you know, has been
ordained to the ministry and who desires to return to Korea for evangelistic work. I asked for
another medical certificate and it is to the effect that he ought to remain in this country another
year. Dr. Johnson offered to resign, but said that he would prefer to be carried on the rolls as a
missionary without home allowance. In view of this offer and of the good prospect that he may be
able to return to Korea next September (1914) and the strongly expressed opinion of the Rev. Dr.
S.A. Moffett when in New York recently, that the Mission desired his return if possible, the Board
took the following action the 20* instant:
“On the basis of a certificate from Dr. W.F. Martin, the furlough of Dr. and Mrs. W.O.
Johnson of the Korea Mission, was extended to September 1914, Dr. Johnson having written
July F' that he would be willing to remain without home allowance, it was further voted that his
home allowance, which is now provided in the budget for the year, be continued to January F‘ and
that the appropriation for the remainder of this fiscal year be cancelled.”
We deeply sympathize with Dr. Johnson who has had rather a hard time as you, of course,
know. We are thankful that there is now such a good hope of his entire restoration to health and
of his return to the work which he loves.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from the microfilm archival collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Reel
#1, Series n. Record Group 140-2-1 (Outgoing Correspondence )
Pyengyang, Korea September 4, 1913 [excerpts] Belle S. Luckett
Dear Sweet Boy - [written to her grown son]
1 am just home from the prayer meeting the foreigners have every Thursday night. The
Methodists and Presbyterians have it together, first at a Methodist house then at a Presbyterian.
Tonight it was at the Academy building for Korean girls which is a union school. 1 am getting to
be one of this little community quite fast and will soon be an old missionary in truth. 1 am so
impressed all the time with the youth of the missionaries here. Even the oldest ones are just
about my age, which isn’t old for a missionary
A lady told me tonight that everyone was talking about how sweet our house was
looking. Well, 1 think it is sweet, myself, considering how little we had to make it look nice and
my things not yet here. 1 have been putting in “touches” here and there and it is the “touches”
that make a home. Today 1 finished the window seat and it js a delightful alcove. One of the
ladies told me tonight she’d send me a big pot of ferns! Think what an addition that will make!
Everyone is lovely here. 1 went over to the house to live on Monday though 1 sleep here at
Mowrys and will until the children come next week
It seems to be a place where people “drop in” some of the children of the
community come to see me once in awhile. Virginia Wells, Dr. Wells’ sixteen-year-old
daughter and a dear, sweet girl, is one of my friends. She brought me a package of fudge the
other evening. It wasn’t even cold yet. She often drops in. I am fond of her. There are such
sweet children here. Miss Fish comes on Monday [Sept. 8th] and I will be glad to see her.
School opens on Wednesday. There will be about 20 children and as many classes
Mr. Mowry got home from a country preaching trip today and came right over to see me.
He is as good to me as if he were my boy and seemed just as glad to see me. He attends to all
my business as he is the Mission treasurer and knows about things. I tell you it is lovely to have
someone do that for you. I am to pay $22.50 a month board. I have no other expense except my
own personal expenses. The school pays for servants, fuel, food and all running expenses. I
expect to have three boys and five girls with me. All the children and parents have written me
such lovely letters. One boy wrote about his pets, kitten, chickens and ducks
Devotedly,
Mother
(letters of Mrs. Belle S. Luckett, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.)
Seoul, Korea September 4, 1913 Mission Executive Comm.
(XXVII.) LETTER OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE TO BOARD
To the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.
Dear Brethren:
The vote taken of the Missionary body of the country, on the location of the one Arts and
Science College for Korea, on the referendum to us of the question by the Boards’ Joint Committee,
has been concluded, and the results returned by our Educational Senate to the Joint Committee.
The question will doubtless again come before your Board for action. As the Executive Committee
of your Korea Mission and representative of it, we desire that you have certain facts pertinent to the
question fresh in your mind when your action is taken. We do not suppose they are entirely new to
you, but we cannot believe that your former vote was taken with them clearly present in your mind.
Before proceeding to these, we would draw your attention to the proportionate relation
which the work of this Mission holds to the entirety of the work of the 26 Missions which your
Board operates. We do not do this in any spirit of vain glory, but that you may haveln mind that
there is such a proportion of your work here, and that it has developed in such character, and that
the number of your Missionaries is such as to command more than a passing consideration to the
question, and more than a passing consideration to their judgment.
According to your last annual report there is 1 1% of your entire body of missionaries here in
Korea; there is 15% of your entire force of native agents here; there is M% of all the fujl church
communicants \^ich you report, and 41% of all those who were added to the church membership
last year. In Korea, even under all the conditions we have been meeting during the last few years,
there are 42% of all new converts or catechumens. There are 58% of all the Sunday School scholars
attached to your work, and 60% of the Sunday Schools. Thi^-one per cent of all ordinary Schools
which you control are here, and 77% of all thos^whicl^are self-supporting. The Chmch developed
here, in Church and Congregational expenses, in building and repairs, and in Home and Foreign
Missions, gives M% of^ll you report from th£^ld contributed to these objects. But 9% of your
total field appropriations comelo this land. ” — . . - ^
Again we say, we do not speak of this in any sense of glorying. “Ye have compelled us.
Bear with us therefore though we speak as fools.” These data are enough to show that the location
and establishment of a College here is for at least one-third of your entire developed constituency.
As your representatives here in Korea, we realized far more clearly, probably, than yourselves that
as a question it means far more than even this. For the roots of the question, go back to those
principles and methods which, we do not hesitate to say, have, humanly speaking, played no small
part in securing for you in this one small land that constitutes one-third of your entire constituency
and, having done it, relatively, at so small a charge to your budget. If you will bear this assertion in
mind, we believe that you will find it amply vindicated further on, where we make a comparison of
the relative efficiency of the churches developed in this same land under the different policies
obtaining in the various missions at work here. All Missions in Korea do not pursue these policies
or adhere to these principles.
In the matter of this College, we are convinced from the communication of the Joint
Committee, and from the vote of our Board on the same, that we on the field and you at home have
two radically different ideas in mind, and are looking at two radically different things. There are
two fundamental principles which determined the policies of your workers here from the beginning.
One has been the dir^ preaching of the Gospel - the putting of spiritual things first - the putting of
them clear ahead of everything else and keeping them 9Tere - the retiring of possible grounds of
ulterior motive - the retiring of even necessary secondary agencies far enough into the rear so that in
the mind of the developing church the spiritual standard would be high and clear, and there would
be no possible confusion on this point. This has been in the belief that there is in the Gospel itself
9/4/1913 - p.2 Mission Exec. Comm.
an accompanying superhuman power that works salvation. The second has been, while continually
seeking to secure an increasing dominance of the first, to encourage, inspire, enable the growing
church to stand on its own feet, to hold this Gospel as its own, not ours; to thrust upon it a sense of
all those responsibilities which before God are involved in this position and to ourselves retire into
the rear.
Except you yourselves had been here, and intimately acquainted with the development of
the work, it is impossible for you to appreciate in how many ways and how providentially these
principles have been rendered applicable, as they have not been possible in other fields, and how
they have ramified and determined the policies in every department of our work. We realize that,
while perfectly clear to us, it is even impossible for us to clearly set forth the extent of it to others.
In their outworking they have entirely dominated the system of education which we have
developed. With us the Church throughout its entire rank and file is the evangelizing organization
of the country. Education is strictly the handmaid of the Church. Education as a direct
evangelizing agency - the Alexander Duff idea - is unknown among us. It has no place among us
until the system of education, developed under the application of the principles which have given us
what measure of success we have been accorded, is completed, in the establishment of a collegiate
institution of such a character as will close the circuit and direct the system’s influence back upon
the life of the Church again. The Seoul proposition, and that which manifestly is in the mind of the
Joint Committee, and, we think, in your mind, is that of the great universities which have been
developed under the relatively hard and different conditions of other mission fields. They are
predominantly evangelizing institutions. The Pyeng Yang proposition is for an institution where
every influence and every agency shall be bent to the service of this great Church - to make it
permanently, through the leaders and influence which this institution provides, in all its life and
activities which we have indicated above. There is no question but what Pyeng Yang is the location
in the country for an institution of this second type. Practically a two-thirds majority of the entire
Missionary body of the country have declared themselves on this point and in doing so have
declared themselves as to the character of the institution which we need.
It is because among the missions of the country our mission has been foremost in the
practice of these principles, because we have developed and grown as no other has, and because, in
consequence, these problems have been thrust upon us earlier, that we are worked out to an
outstanding position on these points. Yet until 1912 no question had ever been raised in the
missionary body as to the propriety of the present location and, viewed on any basis, the present
institution does not suffer in comparison with other institutions. The Joint Committee’s Report has
mentioned some. Hang Chow College has 117 students, 3 1 of whom are in the College course; Soo
Chow University has 305 students, 45 of whom are in the College course; Pyeng Yang College has
392 students, 50 of whom are in the College course. How different the situation and the problem
which we face here, and how differently it demands to be considered, as compared with other fields,
will be evident to you from the following: In Soo Chow University there are 305 students; 50 of
them are Christians. In Forman Christian College there are 490 students; 25 of them are Christian.
In Illahabad Christian College there are 302 students; 19 of them are Christians. In Pyeng Yang
Union College there are 392 students; 392 of them are Christians. No comparison can be made
between the principles which determined the location and character of such institutions and those
which are to determine here. One man’s salt is the other man’s poison. We believe that your large
body of missionaries in Korea are in a position to know this question better than you. We say it
with all deference. We are practically a unit on the subject. The bulk of the Missionary body are
with us. We protest that what your decision would give us is for us and for our work not salt but
poison.
Again, we would point out to you the position which your Mission and its work, relative to
other Missions, holds in this country. While in organization you are our superior body, there is, we
think, a higher relation - a sense in which you, at the home end, hold in trust for us your
9/4/1913 - p.3 Mission Exec. Comm.
Missionaries, our interests upon the field. In a case where your missionaries are so large a
proportion of the entire body; where in this particular line their work has become developed far
ahead of that of any other Mission; where the fruits of their work may be said to show some degree
of wisdom on their part, it seems to us that the repeatedly declared position of your field force on an
important field question, affecting their large work far more than that of any other mission, should
be given such weight by you as to make you very slow, if not really constitute an insuperable
obstacle, to a decision contrary to their position. The relative strength of the six federated missions
in Mission units (men and single women) is as follows:
Mission
Members
Per Ct. of Whole
Canadian Presbyterian
14
5.2%
Australian Presbyterian
22
8.2%
Methodist Episcopal South
43
16.1%
Methodist Episcopal North
51
19.1%
Southern Presbyterian
56
21.0%
Northern Presbyterian
81
30.4%
You will note the order of strength of the six missions.
You will not fail to note that your
own Missionaries constitute nearly one-
-third of the entire Missionary body of the country.
What is true of the Mission force itself is far more true of the churches which have been
developed in the country under the respective Missions. These stand as follows:
Mission
Communicants Per Ct. of Whole
Australian Presbyterian
1792
2.6%
Canadian Presbyterian
2260
3.3%
Methodist Episcopal South
6912
10.2%
Southern Presbyterian
17,173
10.5% (sic)
Methodist Episcopal North
10,373
15.3% (sic)
Northern Presbyterian
39,475
58.1%
Again you will note the sequence, and you will not fail to note that your own Mission holds
16% more of the total communicancy of the country than all the rest of the Missions put together;
that it also holds 43% more of the whole than any other single Mission in Korea. When you
recollect that with missionaries in Korea the College question is one of church up-building rather
than an evangelistic one, you will appreciate why your mission has stood, and stands, where it does
on this question. It is a question which affects the future life and character of the Church in this
country, in which church we have a larger stake than all the rest of the missions in Korea put
together.
There is another point on which we have great diffidence in speaking. Comparisons are
always invidious, and we fear lest some should interpret us as boasting. Nevertheless we feel that
we would not be doing justice to our position, neither would we be doing justice to the real interests
of this rare church, whose members are the children of our labors, our prayers, and, we believe, in
some considerable degree of those policies to which, so far, we have clung through all changes of
weather and in which, so far, you have always upheld us.
At the time of the Mott Conference, one Commission prepared data comparing the amount
of money used by each Mission for certain objects with that contributed by the native church
attached to that Mission for the same object. In other words, the parallel efficiency developed in the
church as compared with the foreign money still being used in it. Mr. Moose, the senior member of
the Southern Methodist Mission, was the chairman of the Commission and presented the data.
They were referred back as hardly believable, with instructions to carefully canvass the subject
again. They subsequently issued this report. The figures are theirs. The percentages are ours
because only by percentages can one tabulate relative values.
9/4/1913- p. 4 Mission Exec. Comm.
The amounts spent from foreign sources and contributed from Korean church sources for
propagation and sustentation (what is commonly classified as evangelistic work) is as follows:
Mission
Mission
Korean Church
Per Cent of
Money
Money
Efficiency
Methodist Episcopal North, (Yen)
33976.00
6414.00
2.5%
Australian Presbyterian
2594.00
694.00
3.6%
Methodist Episcopal South
25570.00
7241.00
3.7%
Southern Presbyterian
13834.00
5406.00
5.6%
Canadian Presbyterian
5000.00
5705.00
15.1%
Northern Presbyterian
17540.00
92005.00
69.5%
100%
Again please note the sequence, and note that our church per member, for that is what the
percentage means, has developed 4.6 times the efficiency of the Mission nearest to it, and 28 times
the efficiency of the church connected with the Mission farthest from it. You will also notice that
this last Mission is the one having the next largest constituency to ourselves in the country.
In the report mentioned, the same comparison is made in developed church efficiency in
educational matters. It is as follows:
Mission
Mission
Korean Church
Per Cent of
Money
Money
Efficiency
Methodist Episcopal, South
34634.00
2051.00
.9%
Methodist Episcopal, North
32774.00
11274.00
5.1%
Southern Presbyterian
8820.00
3183.00
5.3%
Australian Presbyterian
2847.00
2222.00
11.5%
Canadian Presbyterian
4900.00
7133.00
21.5%
Northern Presbyterian
9019.00
34040.00
55.7%
Again note the sequence and note that the efficiency per member developed in the church
nurtured by our Mission, as compared with what the Mission itself does, is 2.6 times that of the
mission nearest to it and 67 times that of the Mission farthest from it. Moreover this is not due to
the fact that these Missions specialize on education more than ourselves, for the actual aggregate of
educational work, whether in number of schools or number of students is far greater in our Mission
than in any other.
Among the missionaries in this country, theoretically no question has been raised as to the
college question being a question of church nurture rather than a directly evangelistic one upon a
heathen student body. The Mott Conference unanimously declared all education here to be so.
Your own Mission comprises nearly one-third the entire missionary body. Its product is 58% of the
entire communicant constituency. On the average each one of this 58% has 71 .2% of the church
efficiency and 60% of the educational efficiency of the whole. As the Mission with the
overwhelmingly largest interest and the work most advanced we have already built up an institution
that whether in the total number of its student body or the number in the College department, ranks
with the great universities quoted in the Joint Committee’s report, and in that peculiar character of a
Christian institution developed under the conditions and the needs of the work here, it stands unique
in the world. We believe that it is an integral part of that system of policies which has contributed
so much to produce what our Mission has. The second largest Mission in the country, the Southern
Presbyterian, unanimously backs us in this position. In its annual meeting it has recently passed a
unanimous vote for one college and that in Pyeng Yang. A third coincides. A fourth is equally
divided. The strength of the opposing theory and position is found in the two missions third and
fourth in the order of strength. One of them has the next largest native constituency to ourselves; it
has been in the country the same length of time, yet both pursuing distinctly different policies from
9/4/1913- p.5 Mission Exec. Comm.
our own, stand at the extreme minimum limit of developed church efficiency, whether in
evangelistic work, or in education. On the recent popular vote practically a two-thirds majority
stood for the present location.
We do not feel that we have ever failed in a willingness to sacrifice for the interests of
community, federation or union. We have cheerfully given our developed work to the Australians;
in the final comity division with the M.E. Mission we gave concessions out of all proportion with
the interests involved; in the interest of union in the college we granted equal control, because it
was insisted upon, although but a third of the burden was assumed; in the Educational Senate, in
proportion to our constituency, the agreed basis of representation, we accepted half that accorded to
the M.E. Mission, for the same reason. But this college question is not such as these. It lays violent
hands upon the completing institution of that system that has given us what we have secured at the
cost of life and strength and years. It perverts it to another character and theory. It locates it where
the ends we stand for can be but indifferently attained, if at all. This is purchasing union at too high
a cost.
As the Executive Committee of the Mission which represents approximately one-third of all
your developed interests upon the foreign field, we do most earnestly present these facts to your
consideration; when the question again comes before you for decision, we trust that it be with due
recognition of the fact that you are not only our superior body, but that the invested interests of your
missionaries here is anything but small, and that you hold in trust for them their interests upon the
field.
We have loyally abided by the Senate’s reference to the Joint Committee. The Joint
Committee and the Boards stating their positions, have passed the referendum on to the missionary
body on the field, where it should have been decided in the first place. The missionary body in two
consecutive votes has given a decision on the subject the tenor of which cannot be misunderstood.
In view of this we consider the question closed. Our own Mission and the great majority of the
missionary body at large has borne with, and made concessions to, the minority, until forbearance
has ceased to be a virtue, propriety, justice, and honor equally permit of but two alternatives to a
minority in a case like this, either to cheerfully accede the necessary law of majority rule, or to
withdraw. For the majority to go further would be to be false to what they regard as the great
interests committed to them by the King. It is largely for the sake of these missions that we have
sought union. A fleet’s speed is limited to the speed of its slowest unit. Union in the case means
difficulties and limitations as much as anything else to ourselves. If the policies of other missions
on the field demand such an institution as the Seoul location involves, let them go their way and
establish it. We will give them all the fraternal countenance and good will any can ask, much as for
their own sakes we would deprecate the policy. But it is not in reason. It is not in justice, that the
bulk of the missionary body, holding the overwhelming interests of the country, which they have
attained by different and more successful policies, should be dragged in their train.
Yours in the Service,
THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE MISSION
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the
CHOSEN [KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US. A. because of a Lack of
Definition between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the
administration of FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 74-78.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in
the collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyengyang, Korea
September 12, 1913 [excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
Dear boy of mine -
Well, the business for which I am responsible is “on” as one might say. Our home is in
good order with what we have on hand to put it in order with. The people here seem amazed and
delighted that we could evolve such a home out of the lack of almost everything. I was thankful
indeed that I had some of my outfit money left with which I could buy such things as we can get
here, for no one had any money. There isn’t any for the supplies for this home until the parents
begin to pay in board, so it was fortunate that 1 could draw on what I had left - and still I had to
be careful for there is that big freight bill to pay
In the Korean schools conducted by the missionaries is an industrial department where
they make really splendid furniture. The nice old bachelor of whom I wrote, has it in charge. He
is having a table and a magazine stand made for us and has had several things done for us that
have been a big help. He is the friend of all the boys and girls here and loves to come over to our
house to be with them
This next week will be the great Annual Meeting here in P.Y. where all our missionaries
come together for a ten days conference and adjustment of the work. It is the great event of each
year in every mission field. Our children, you know, are just those whose parents live in out-
stations, some of them days away. They will all be here and I shall have them each for a meal
with the children and to see the home. One mother is already in the city and was here to supper
last night
The son of one of the managers of the home, Wilbur Swallen, has gone to America with
his two sisters, to colleges. They have to work their way, all of them. They have been working
all summer. Their mother told me about Wilbur’s work. He got a place in a hotel as bell boy at
$13 a month and board. But there were lots of “tips” and as his father felt the taking of tips was
injurious to the boy’s character he [Wilbur] told the proprietor he couldn’t take any and the
proprietor told him he’d have to go, as they all took tips. Besides that he would lose the
promised place next year. The tips bring the bell boy’s salary up to about $30 a month. He tried
to get other work and finally had to go back to that hotel as a dishwasher at $1 1 a month and ten
hours work where there is never a tip of any sort. While he was on that job the clerk got sick and
he was put in the clerk’s place at $30 a month! That is the sort of boys we’re sending to
America from the mission field in Korea and he and his sisters fully intend to go into foreign
mission work.
Miss Fish is just dear. She is going to make some time exposures of our interior so you
can all see how we live. The school-house in which we teach is about a square away, right in
this compound and is a two-roomed Korean mud and tiled-roofed house, very artistic and pretty.
We have about 20 children in all, though there will be others later on
Love ever.
Mother
(letters of Belle S. Luckett, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
September 15, 1913
Arthur Judson Brown
New York, New York
(X)
The Rev. James E. Adams, D.D., Taiku, Chosen (Korea).
My dear Dr. Adams:
I have received your letter of August 13“’, addressed to me as Chairman of the Joint
Committee of the Boards on Education in Korea, communicating the result of the vote which was
taken at the request of our Committee’s report. You will understand our very deep interest in it.
As far as 1 am personally concerned, this vote of the missionaries settles the question of location
and I shall cast my own vote in accordance with it. A very serious question remains, however, as
to whether the minority, which you report as constituting one-third of the total vote, is willing to
acquiesce in the ways indicated in the closing paragraph of your letter. It will be very hard to
make much headway in this country in securing support for a College if the College is to be
opposed by one-third of the Missionaries, and there would, also, be difficulties on the field. The
development of a College is a hard enough proposition even when it has the full support of the
Missionary body upon whose good will it so largely depends. I am, therefore, very much
gratified by your statement that you have sent an appeal to the minority “in view of the result of
the vote to concede the will of the majority” and that you hope shortly to be able to write me
favorably of the result. Knowing the situation at this end of the line as I do, 1 think it will be the
part of wisdom for me to defer the question of calling a meeting of our Joint Committee and
presenting the matter to the Boards until I have your report on this question, otherwise, I fear that
a decision might be reached that, while the vote on the field shows that the Union College, when
the way is clear to proceed, should be in Pyeng Yang, the state of feeling among the Missionaries
is such as to make it inexpedient to proceed with the matter at present. If you could read all the
letters that have come to me on the subject you would understand the danger of this action, for
these letters, 1 am sorry to say, indicate so much heat as to justify the fear that considerable
feeling has been developed. I hope to hear from you soon and will act promptly as soon as I do.
With warm regards, I remain
Cordially yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 36, 37.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Taiku, Korea September 20, 1 9 1 3 James E. Adams
(XI)
Rev. A.J. Brown, D.D., Chairman Boards’ Joint Committee for Education in Korea.
My dear Dr. Brown:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 15“’ ult., acknowledging the receipt of the field vote on
college location, and your letter was read at the recent meeting of the Senate, with the other
records of the vote. In your letter you spoke of being gratified at my plan of making an appeal to
the minority, and that you would delay calling a meeting of the Joint Committee until you had
heard of the result. You have, of course, received my letter informing you of the failure to get
unanimity in the Senate authorizing such an appeal.
At this meeting of the Senate those of the minority opposing the appeal, wished their
position to be understood as not one of opposing majority rule, or one of proposed opposition to
a Joint Committee decision to locate in Pyeng Yang. They did not interpret the Joint Committee
letter as making the referendum to the missionary body final; that the decision became final only
after it had again passed through the Joint Committee. They therefore opposed an appeal to the
minority as a prejudging of the question at that time, though they were quite prepared to loyally
accept any decision which the Joint Committee might make.
Of course I am not in a position to know, but I am inclined to think that you have perhaps
magnified the strenuous opposition of some as representing that of the entire minority. There are
some in the city of Seoul who probably will never be reconciled to having the College in Pyeng
Yang nor cease to agitate if a decision contrary to their way of thinking is made. These are,
however, relatively few, the bulk of the minority do not stand with them, and it is scarcely proper
that the wheels of the Lord’s chariot should be made to drag on account of their strenuous
opposition.
My statement that they do not represent the bulk of the minority will be borne out, I think,
if you will examine the tally sheet of the vote. The object of the last two questions in the vote
was to bring out the position of both majority and minority voters on this point. You will
observe that out of the minority of 37 voters, 19, one more than half, have distinctly declared
themselves as putting the desirability of one College above a question of location, and that if it is
located at Pyeng Yang, they will not favor a second college in Seoul. At the worst, this leaves
but 18; 12 have not recorded themselves on the subject, and among these are several whom I
know are not such opponents as you speak of Assume, however, that two-thirds are of that kind.
Among the remaining six of the eighteen, two voted for two Colleges rather than one only in
Pyeng Yang; four voted for two under any circumstances. Of these last four, two are ardent and
influential advocates of the Seoul location - two are not.
To sum up the analysis then, out of this eighteen, eight from the twelve, the two voting
for a second college rather than one only in Pyeng Yang, and two voting for two Colleges, or a
total of twelve might be fairly estimated as making the body of difficulty. At the very worst (for
we must count the vote an honest expression of opinion) it could not be more than eighteen. In
reality it is considerably less than that.
There is, however, a factor, concerning which I am not fully informed but of the reality of
which I am well convinced, and which I consider militates against the union project much more
9/20/1913 - p.2 J.E.A.
than the above, and more than any field condition. It is the unwillingness of the Methodist Board
to consider the Pyeng Yang location. You yourself very frankly spoke of this in your letter to the
Mission. Dr. John F. Goucher, who is out here and attended the late Senate meeting, told me
privately of the same thing and with comparative positiveness. When questioned upon it in the
Senate, while not making so flat-footed a statement, he gave it as his opinion, from an intimate
knowledge of their Secretaries’ position, that they could not consider the Pyeng Yang location.
In arguing the Seoul location before the Senate, he also based his remarks upon the fact that the
proceeds of the sale of certain Methodist Board properties here in Seoul could be available for a
Seoul institution but not for one in Pyeng Yang, and most of his remarks were based on the
above assumption.
If this is the case, I think that simple honesty and justice to the missionary body and to all
parties concerned in the question alike demand that it should be known, and publicly and
officially stated. Otherwise referendums and negotiations are simply of form and not of fact, and
are so much valuable strength and time but illy spent.
I feel that I am not out of place in speaking thus freely, in that the missionary body,,
which the Senate, and I as its executive officer represent, has now spoken decisively on the
subject.
Believe me.
Yours in the Service,
James E. Adams
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN US.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 37, 38.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyeng Yang, Korea
September 2 1 , 1913 [exeerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
Dearest Boy -
My furniture came last Saturday night about dark. There were 16 pieces of it
counting the barrel of jam and jelly everything is in pretty good shape. Things were bent and
banged some but they have been mended up Late Saturday evening the two boys I have
here at the dormitory came running in to say my things had come. I went out down the road past
our lawn and there at the Korean gateway that we all have in the wall about our compound (an
artistic tiled gateway) there at the gateway were two bull-teams and a Japanese man in charge
who came bowing to me with the bills of lading, etc. - all in Japanese! I was just wondering
how I was to manage when along came our good old bachelor, everybody’s friend and helper.
He at once took charge after laughing at me because I couldn’t read the bills or direct the men.
He ordered all the unloading and with the aid of my man, the servants and children, everything
was unloaded, unpacked and carried in, books and all. We stopped and had supper in the midst
of it all, Mr. McM. eating with us, in his shirt sleeves as his coat was down at his house at the
end of our road. Later in the evening one of the children’s father and mother - a Dr. and his
wife, the loveliest sort of folks - came in and worked until ten o’clock hanging all the pictures
and putting up my bed and all. It was fine! My, how the things did add to our home! You know
we have gotten famous here because of our home - they talk about it all around - and it is so
sweet and homey - that’s what 1 must have it! The children love the things so. Someone
said the children were so happy they’d not want to go home. One of the boys said a most
complimentary thing after we were fixed up - he said, “We don’t live in a dormitory we live in a
home!
The great annual gathering of all our Presbyterian missionaries in Korea is meeting here.
There are 60 or more missionaries and they all come with ^ their children and even with
Korean nurses and are entertained for the two weeks of the session in the missionary homes and
they consider it a privilege on both sides. Some of the missionaries have five or six children and
all of them have one or two or three.
I don’t think anyone could have a lovelier or more cordial or sincere welcome than I
have had here. People from all parts of the field welcome me like a relative The school work
keeps me on the jump. We have such a full schedule it is impossible for Miss Fish to get
through without my help so I teach three grades in geography and three in history and put in 2
hours a day. That breaks in on the day. They all tell me here how pleased they are that I was
made principal of the school as well as matron of the dormitory for they see that the Board knew
what it was doing. I see, myself, it is a good plan for I have had to plan the school work so
largely. Miss Fish is just dear but she does not intend to stay but a year and you can see how it
would break things up not to have a head to things
With my heart’s best love.
Mother
I’m sending the only daily paper published in Korea, at the capital. You will note the marked
passage!
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
Pyengyang, Korea October 3, 1913 [excerpts] Belle S. Luckett
Dearest Boy -
I am sitting here alone at 8:00 p.m. in our dining room. The children are all in bed - they
go at 7:30 but it takes more than a half hour for them to get quiet
Today at school two young men - brothers from America, visited the school. They are in
Korea for some business with a Bible Society. Then this afternoon the Secretary to the Japanese
Governor and two Japanese men gave us a call. They speak some English. The Japanese love to
see everything. They are absorbed with curiosity
Our last boy came on Saturday. He is a funny combination. He is an overgrown ten-
year-old Canadian who has never played with foreign children and doesn’t know how - nor how
to go to school, never having been in school - nor how to act like a civilized boy. He has been
spoiled and allowed all sorts of undisciplined ways and eats something - apples, chestnuts,
anything he can get every minute he isn’t at the table, much to the disgust of the other
children I have him by me at the table and am trying to get him straightened out. I like
him in some things. He has an innocent child-like way and a good disposition and I pity him and
am thankful from the bottom of my heart that he is here and will have this chance. His mother
writes pitiful letters to “laddie dear” of her loneliness without him and of her joy that he is
having such a privilege. The care with which these mothers prepare their children and the
solicitation they feel for them and the letters of gratitude they write me would just make you cry.
I feel this arrangement for the children of missionaries is one of the finest things our Board has
done, for the children certainly are a high grade and deserve the oversight and care they get.
They are so used to doing without things and so sweet about it— and they always work on the
principle that a Christian can’t do some things
The missionaries have planted lots of fruit trees but when the fruit is getting ripe they all
have to hire watchmen to guard the trees all night. The man builds a little hut out near the trees
and watches with clubs and rocks all night. Our outside man has a little mat out near the house
and is watching our apple trees. We had some stolen the other night and also a beautiful pair of
Plymouth Rock chickens that Dr. Moffett had given us. The man had built a fine coop with wire
and door in front but the chickens were taken
Did I tell you how they wish you would come to Pyeng Yang and start an experimental
farm and dairy for the Koreans on the fine land the mission has here for the purpose?
We have two weeks vacation at Christmas time. Blanche [Mrs. George Winn] expects to
be here by that time. Miss Fish wants me to go to Peking with her during the holidays. I don’t
know just what we will do. The parents from all around in Korea are asking me to come to visit
them during the holiday seasons
With love and prayer ever.
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
Pyengyang, Korea
Dearest Boy,
October 6, 1913 [excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
k too, will be most happy if you can finish school. It has been one of the bitter
disappointments to me in these last two years of disappointments, that you could not have that
chance. I have always so deeply missed a college education and so intensely longed for it - that I
knew perfectly what it meant for you not to finish your school. Ever since I have been out here
in this responsible place among these finely equipped people, every one of them college bred
and how I have missed and longed for a better education! At the Annual Meeting where all
the missionaries of Korea (Presbyterian) were assembled, men who have spent years in
translating Bibles, books of science, dictionaries, etc. - and keen, finely educated women - they
announced that the Board in New York had sent me out as Principal of the Foreign School as
well as in charge of the dormitory and that they had realized the wisdom of the Board’s action.
That was a great compliment to me but I am never willing to presume to occupy a place I am not
fitted to occupy and I told Dr. Moffett and the Board of Managers of the Foreign School who
met here Saturday just how I felt about it. I told them I could help teach and advise in the
direction of the school and look after the children here in our home who are far from their
homes, but I did not feel equal to being the Principal when I had only a High School education
and all the rest of them college people. I told them I never posed for what I was not and I
couldn’t in this. They said they had investigated the whole matter and me and felt that it was the
best arrangement that could have been made and that they all wanted me to retain the place of
Principal and develop the school as I had begun doing - that they were “delighted” with the
condition the school is in after our first month. They only seem to be afraid I will overwork.
The men here are all my loyal supporters as well as the women. The thing that does me
most good of all is to have the missionary parents tell me they can do more work and better work
now that their children are provided for. This little group of American children appeal to the
very soul of me! They are so genuine and so sweet and unselfish and it just hurts me to see how
much they do without. So, you see dear boy, it seems this is my place now, doesn’t it? Miss
Fish only expects to stay until next summer. My, how we do work, both of us!
We organized a little C.E. [Christian Endeavor] Society just for our home crowd to have
on Sunday evenings, after our lunch. There are just eleven members as our pianist is Dr. Wells’
Virginia, who is the only girl in Pyengyang (American) who is as old as fourteen! Then our
good old bachelor who is such a friend and helper to our boys and everybody’s good friend, is
also a member. We have him in to lunch with us on Sunday evenings and last night he made the
little talk in our meeting on the “Square Deal”. It was a fine talk for boys or anyone. He is such
a clean, kind, big manly man - just the one to help boys Our little Society is just fine and
has so interested the children for they love things “like they are in America”.
I love you, dear boy, and pray constantly for you and dear Georgie.
Sincerely,
Your mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN KOREA MISSION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
Pyengyang, Korea October 9, 1913 Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
Mr. Reiner, the Mission Secretary, has notified me that he has sent you direct a certified copy
of the Minutes of the Annual Meeting. I shall send you printed copies of the Minutes when they are
ready and will then write calling attention to matters requiring Board action. There are however a
few matters I want to mention oat once, that you may have my comments on them before you when
you read the type-written copy of minutes sent you.
In connection with the question of giving Fusan territory to the Australians, when you take
action on that, in case the Board approves, action should be taken also on the request in Sec. 12 of
the Property Committee’s report asking that the Appropriation for a house in Milyang be made
available for a house in Taiku. Mr. Herbert Blair transferred to Taiku [and] will want to begin at
once preparations for his house in Taiku if this appropriation is transferred there.
Mr. Koons transfer to Seoul was made in view of Mr. E.H. Miller’s resignation as Principal
of the John D. Wells Training School. Mr. Pieters was then transferred to Chai Ryung in Mr. Koons’
place.
You may think we are asking for a great many furloughs and so I want to classify them for
you so that it will be evident at once that even with the regular furloughs there are none of any station
except Seoul that overlap in date and that these are of different departments of work so that they will
not interfere with the orderly prosecution of the work of the Mission. The furloughs asked for are as
follows:
REGULAR FURLOUGHS
Miss Best
Mr. Hunt
Mr. Ross
STATION
Pyengyang
Chai Ryung
Syenchun
DATE OF
April 1, 1914
July 1, 1914
July 1, 1914
DURATION
ENDING
INTERMEDIATE FURLOUGHS
Dr. Purviance
Chungju
Dec. 1, 1913
10 mo’s, 2 days
Oct. 2, 1914
Dr. Fletcher
Taiku
April 1, 1914
8 mo’s, 23 days
Dec. 23, “
Mr. Reiner
((
March 1, 1915
9 mo’s, 12 days
Dec. 12, ‘15
Dr. Avison
Seoul
July 1, 1914
8 mo’s, 15 “
Mch.l5, ‘15
Miss Lewis
7 mo’s, 29 “
Feb. 20. ‘15
Mr. Toms
((
Nov. 15, 1914
10 “ , 15 “
Oct. 1, ‘15
Miss Forsythe
((
Feb. 2, 1915
7 months
Sept. 2, ‘15
Miss Brownlee
u
Feb. 15, “
Sept. 15, “
Dr. Hirst returns just after Dr. Avison leaves.
We fully believe that the intermediate furloughs mean less injury to the work and better
health for the missionary.
One other thing please notice. In the Property requests, the first three items in order of
preference are for residences, all needed for people on the field. It is especially desirable that the
¥3000 for Miss Stevens’ rooms be provided before the completion of the Women’s Academy to
which they are to be added, as it will then mean less expense of money, time and energy than if they
10/09/13 - p.2 S.A.M.
are added later.
I am mailing you 3 copies of our revised Rules and By-Laws. Will you please send me a
copy of the Board’s Code Book for the use of the Chairman of the Executive Committee, and also
please send at least 16 copies of the Board’s Manual, latest edition - or if you can send one for each
family in the Mission, send 75 copies.
I hope to send printed minutes very soon. The Supreme Court’s decision is a great
disappointment. It may be technically correct, but it means that an unjust decision in the lower
courts, if legally correct, cannot be reversed. 1 am disappointed in the Japanese judiciary.
With kindest regards.
Very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman, Executive Committee
(photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
San Francisco, California
October 9, 1913
Will C. Wallace
Mrs. Charles H. Fish, San Rafael, California
Dear Madam:-
Replying to yours of the 8* inst., I acknowledge receipt of your former letter concerning the
Yuba stock, which I meant to have answered ere this.
It appears that you or Mr. Fish have lost the Yuba certificate, as it has never been in this office
to my knowledge, since it was first issued. The entry on the books stands as evidence of your
ownership and it will be possible to have another certificate issued to you for the proper number of
shares: but I have thought it best to postpone action until we are ready to put out the new stock, so as
to avoid double work. I shall prepare and send you an affidavit stating that you have lost the original
certificate of Yuba Con. stock, and that you agree to hold the Company harmless in case it issues
another certificate to replace it, or a certificate of the new company such as you would be entitled to
in exchange for the old one.
It will be a couple of weeks yet before we are ready to take final action on the new
incorporation, as there are a good many stockholders yet to hear from. As soon as we get to it, I will
attend to your matter in the way stated.
At present, there is no market for Yuba Con. stock; but we hope there will be for the new
stock, on the new basis. There are several people considering the property just now, and we may
effect a sale soon. In any case, you will receive as favorable consideration as anyone.
Yours truly.
[a note in Samuel A. Moffett’s handwriting was appended to this letter. It reads: “Certificate No. 126
for 3500 shares issued to Charles H. Fish dated Oct. 23, 1908 is probably the lost certificate referred
to above. Finding it with other papers I enclose it with this.
S.A.M.
This certificate is now with the other papers, documents and letters of the Samuel Austin Moffett
material]
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers)
Pyengyang, Korea
Dearest Boy,
October 13, 1913 [excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
This has been an interesting and full day. Up early and had breakfast
and gave the orders for the servants for the day, then Korean prayers with all the family, then the
children off to school. Then at 20 to 10 off to my classes until almost noon - home for dinner,
then at 2 o’clock until 3 I went to the home of one of the missionaries where 1 had been invited
to a Korean feast. The guests were Korean women only, who have been having a special class
for Bible study. There were 30 or 40, 1 suppose, both young and old. They came in their clean
linen clothes with the neat white band folded about the head. They look so interesting and are as
different in their personalities as American women. They were all so interested in me, asking if I
was the mother of the missionary lady at whose house we were being entertained. They came up
to me, taking my hand in both of theirs, in the gentlest manner and with great respect saying I
had come a long way and must be very brave. They raised their hands in shocked astonishment
when they found how oW 1 am! ! One came quickly forward and said I must be her twin as she
too was 55, though her hair was jet black. Another said 1 looked much like a greatly beloved
missionary who died last summer. [Probably referring to Mrs. Alice Moffett, who died in July of
1912]. I could only bow and smile in return for their kind salutations The party was on
the lawn which had many straw mats for them to sit on
It is a great event to the Korean women to “kugyung”or “sightsee” in a foreign house. So
they were taken in little parties all over the house. What a marvel it was to them!
After the games and sightseeing the feast was served. It was a real Korean feast - just what they
love to eat. It is called “cooksu” and is a great quart bowl of a very fine macaroni on top of
which are slices of a pickled white radish or turnip called “kimchie” and with a smell you can
never forget. It is really rotted turnip, but how they do like it! They make barrels of it in the Fall
and the whole world is redolent with the odor. Then there are shreds of cabbage and over all a
very generous sprinkling of red pepper! It looks really pretty and inviting - but oh, the smell!
Just before these bowls of kooksoo were served they all sat down on the mats and one of
them began to pray, at once every head went down and then, one by one, each began to pray her
own prayer aloud. It was very strange and impressive. No one seemed to know what the one
next to her was doing, each was intent on her own petition. Gradually it grew softer until just
one voice concluded the service. Then as their bowls were placed before them each head was
bent in a thanksgiving. No Christian Korean would dream of eating his food without prayer. All
these women had come from a Bible study class, as I said, and each had her Bible and hymn
book tied up in a big cloth that was fastened about her waist with the Bible in front just at her
belt. A few of the women had babies on their backs. When the food was served a pitcher or
kettle of a brown sort of liquid was passed around and poured over the mixture. It is a sort of
brine with a flavoring in it made of mildewed beans. They ate with chopsticks, leaning over the
bowls and bringing the mass of food to the mouth in a continuous stream, sucking at it with
much noise - which is “good form” with them. The more noise the better the form. It was
interesting to see how much more refined some were than others After it was over they
came to the hostess and to me to express their enjoyment and gratitude and to wish us “peace”.
How wonderfully these women’s lives have changed in the few years since they “believed” for
not one of them had ever heard of God fifteen years ago! Oh, I am daily more impressed with
“that power of God” that works such miracles in human lives. One old Korean said he didn’t
need to see any of Christ’s miracles - it was miracle enough to him that Christ’s power could so
change a heathen like himself, taking him literally out of the gutter and making a clean, decent
10/13/13 -p.2 B.S.L.
praying Christian gentleman out of him. And this miracle is repeated daily in this land. How
glad I am that we have such a Redeemer.
These boys and girls here in this home would be a daily rebuke to most Christians in
America. They have completely imbibed the spirit of their missionary parents and feel that they
dare not do or be anything that would cause a heathen to question the religion of Christ. They
are shocked to see the things travelers and visitors do, such as smoking and not praying and
doing things on Sunday that are not necessary. They are the truest little Christians, every one of
them. 1 can understand what Christ meant when he said it were better that one was cast into the
depths of the sea than that he should cause such little ones (tender of conscience - full of simple
faith, believing in God with the confidence of childhood) - these “little ones” to
stumble
If you care to have others read this, it is all right. I can’t often repeat my experiences -
but I love to tell them to you. With prayers and much love.
Ever,
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
Pyengyang, Korea October 17, 1913 [excerpts] Belle S. Luckett
Dear Children - (written to her son, George, and his wife)
I wrote Jamie (her younger son) last week about an experience 1 had attending a
Korean feast. Today 1 had a new experience. At noon there came a very formal invitation by a bearer
who bowed to the ground as he delivered it, inviting the “Foreign Grammar School” to attend the field
day exercises of the Japanese Grammar School. Of course we accepted the invitation. As it was a long
walk 1 sent for a chair and coolies to carry me to the “scene of action” - which in very truth it was.
Miss Fish and our children walked on ahead except two of the older girls who walked beside my chair
all the way. It was an Oriental scene the whole way As we headed our way over ditches and past
the thatched Korean houses I saw on the roofs great quantities of the red peppers drying against the day
for making the kimchee, that foul-smelling pickle which is in general use as a delicious and universal
dish. It is made of rotted turnips, cabbage, peppers and all sorts of other things and has an odor all its
own and never to be forgotten. When Mr. Heintz, the pickle man, was here with the World’s Sunday
School party he made some talks through an interpreter and he was always introduced to the Koreans
as the great “American Kimchee man”, to their great amusement and interest.
Men passed us in high Korean hats and flowing white coats When we arrived at the
grounds we found streamers flying - U.S., English and Japanese flags - from a great central pole
bearing the flag of Japan with its white ground and big red circle. A Japanese lady teacher met us and
conducted us to the “grand stand” where special seats had been prepared for us - chairs, if you please,
and cushioned chairs at that, for Miss Fish and myself! The crowd all around the edge of the grounds
sat on the ground, of course. Because of my gray hair, as usual, and because I am “principal” of the
Foreign School there was the greatest attention shown me. The principal of the Japanese schools, a
very intelligent man in a beard and gold braid and sword, came up before us and bowed very low many
times, then came other officials and bowed and bowed. It is really quite embarrassing to be
“somebody” when you can’t say a word - only smile and bow. But I am learning to bow “like a
native”, so they tell me
There were five hundred children in the games and exercises, so another gold braided Japanese
who spoke good English, told me. When I remarked on the splendid training the children showed he
added that they hadn’t had any training! There was a great circle where they massed for the
stunts. It was just delightful to see their marches and games with perfect precision and without one
movement or confusion. There were funny games, too, races of all sorts. They had many of the chief
performances right in front of us - one was for boys to race and jump through a hoop then crawl under
a wide meshed net, lying on the ground. The winner received writing tablets and pencils - a practical
gift given them by the principal with the gold hilled sword. They invited our boys to race by
themselves which they did, our red-headed Bruce [Hunt] winning the prize - though they gave each of
the boys a prize. The girls tried carrying balls of cord in wooden spoons around the track - and many
other jokes, just like Americans - the teachers and dignified “principal” even taking a turn at a funny
stunt. They had put a lot of balls on the track and scattered spoons among them. The stunt was to
gather all the balls you could in one arm and carry one on a spoon. I never saw anything funnier. The
principal made a speech to the whole school massed together for exercises that did great
credit They asked us to remain a moment when a lot of little girls served us hot tea and the
principal with his own hands presented us each with a package of Japanese cakes done up in white
paper
God bless and keep you safe and full of service.
Lovingly,
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN KOREA MISSION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
Pyengyang, Korea October 20, 1913 Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown:
I should have called your attention to Miss Campbell’s resignation and have asked you for
prompt action on the same with letters to her and the Mission as soon as possible. Her resignation
was sent to the Executive Committee, insisting that it take effect September 13, 1913. The
Executive Committee reported to the Armual Meeting as follows:-
“While regretting the necessity for this step on her part, we recommend to the Board that the
resignation of Miss Campbell dated for September 13, 1913 be accepted and that the Board make
suitable retiring allowance.”
This was adopted by the Mission.
I am hoping that you have already noticed this in the Minutes and have acted on it, for I now
understand that Miss Campbell is awaiting news of the Board action. She is staying on, waiting I
believe for two confinement cases in the Missionary community, although she wanted her
resignation to take effect September 13'’’.
Upon receipt, if action has not been taken, please see that it is taken at once and word sent to the
field. I do not know just what reasons she would prefer to have given for her resignation, if any
are mentioned. She has not stated any and we have not. I have an idea that she prefers that it
should not be based on health reasons, although how to avoid that reason, if reasons are given, I
know not.
All things considered, I hope you will make as liberal an allowance for travel and “retiring
allowance” as is possible.
Very sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman, Executive Committee
(from the microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, P.C.U.S.A., Presbyterian Historical
Society, Philadelphia, Series II, Reel #6, Record Group 140-4-22)
New York, New York October 21,1913 Arthur J. Brown
(XII)
In Re Union College Location Question
To the Korea Mission.
Dear Friends:
I append a copy of a communication, which as Chairman of the Joint Committee on
Education in Korea I have sent to the Rev. James E. Adams, General Secretary of the Senate of
the Educational Federation of Christian Missions in Korea, regarding the pending College
question:
The Rev. James E. Adams, D.D., Genl. Sec., Federation of Christian Missions, Korea
My dear Dr. Adams:
The Joint Committee on Education in Korea held a meeting in New York October 9“’ and
considered your communications June 28*, August 13*, 2E* and 28*, and their enclosures
regarding the votes of the missionaries in Korea on the College location question. Your cable of
October 8* arrived during the Committee meeting. Unfortunately only three members of the
Committee were able to be present as the month of October is an exceedingly difficult month for
a committee meeting, on account of the many meetings of Synods and Conferences, and the
membership of the Committee is, as you know, scattered through a number of widely separated
cities. There were letters, however, from three of the absentees and another was represented by a
colleague who was present.
After long and careful consideration it was agreed that the questions involved are of such
magnitude and difficulty, including, as they do, not only a wide difference of opinion among the
missionaries, but virtually a difference between them as denominations, Methodists and
Presbyterians, though with some exceptions being on opposite sides, that it would be inexpedient
for the Joint Committee to take final action until the questions can be more carefully studied and
a fuller meeting of the Committee can be held. It was, therefore, voted to adjourn until the
Annual Meeting of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America at Garden City, New
York, January 13th- 14th, as it is expected that all the members of the Committee will be present
at that Conference.
I can therefore send at this time merely an acknowledgment of your official
communications and this tentative report. It is evident that some of the Boards feel that very
serious difficulties are involved, and members who reside so far apart as New York, Nashville,
Tennessee, and Toronto, Canada, cannot be assembled before the Annual Conference referred to.
It is desirable also that there should be time to exchange letters with the members of the
Committee who reside in Australia.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur J. Brown
In this connection I wish to acknowledge in behalf of our own Board the receipt of a
communication dated September 4* and signed by Samuel A. Moffett, James E. Adams, Norman
10/21/1913 - p.2 A.J.B.
C. Whittemore, William B. Hunt, A.G. Welbon, A.M. Sharrocks, and Charles Allen Clark. This
communication has been carefully read by the members of our Executive Council, two of whom.
Dr. Speer and myself, are members of the Joint Committee. Inasmuch as our Board will not be
prepared to take up the question until it has received the report of the Joint Committee, which
cannot be presented until January for reasons explained in my letter to Dr. Adams, I can only at
this time acknowledge the receipt of the communication and assure you that the whole matter
will have fresh and careful consideration when Joint Committee is prepared to present its report.
You will appreciate the weight which some of us cordially give to your judgment and to
the majority vote in favor of Pyeng Yang, but there are members of the Committee who represent
important interests, who remind us that on page 10 of the communication of the Joint
Committee, dated February 25*, and addressed to the “Boards having work in Korea” a copy
which was sent to you with Board Letter 145 of April 15*, there appeared this sentence which
was passed upon by all the Boards. “If a majority vote shall be for Seoul it shall be deemed a
final settlement of the question and that prompt effort be made to secure funds for the purchase
of land and the erection of buildings as soon as the Joint Committee shall have passed upon the
estimates which are to be submitted by the Senate of the Educational Foundation in response to
the request of the Joint Committee July 24*; but that if the majority shall prove to be for Pyeng
Yang, the Boards reconsider their decision and no further steps be taken pending the results of
such reconsideration. It is urged, therefore, that the reconsideration contemplated by that section
must now be given to the whole subject. Pending this reconsideration and in view of all the
delicacies of the situation there appears to be no alternative but to hold the matter in abeyance
until the Committee can have reasonable opportunity to complete its work.
Cordially yours,
Arthur J. Brown
(from bound copy entitled PRESENTATION OF DIFFICULTIES which have arisen in the CHOSEN
[KOREA] MISSION of the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN U.S.A. because of a Lack of Definition
between the Foreign Board and itself concerning their mutual responsibilities in the administration of
FIELD WORK, S.A. Moffett and J.E. Adams, editors, pp. 38, 39.
photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
eollections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyengyang, Korea
Dear sweet Jamie Boy,
November 5, 1913 [excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
Halloween one of the missionaries here invited the children
of the community there to a party as they have a big fireplace. We got the cookies and chestnuts
and popcorn and pumpkin lights all ready. Someone sent a lot of ice cream and someone else a
great bowl of marshmallows which we toasted from the end of long sticks. Dr. Moffett, who has
two boys, played witch and told fortunes to perfection. He is the leading missionary of the
Station and a fine strong man. He is also President of the School Board here. His wife was Miss
Fish’s cousin. She died two years ago [actually it was in July of 1912]. She was greatly beloved
here. The folks here tell me the Koreans think 1 look like her and are always saying so. They
tell me that as a great compliment, as the Korean women loved her greatly.
We are planning a Thanksgiving dinner for a little group of us who live right here
together: Dr. & Mrs. Wells and their three children, and Dr. & Mrs. Baird and son. Dr. Moffett
and two boys. Miss Fish, Mr. McMurtrie and a gentleman and his wife who is one of the gold
mine owners here. He has the auto and will take the children for a trip - and our family, of
course, nine of us. It will be fun and awfully good even if we don’t have turkey. We’ll have
duck. 1 expect. Mrs. Wells is one of my best friends and just lovely to me. The other day she
sent me a lovely big fish for dinner. Her daughter, Virginia, is the one American young lady of
our station and a lovely girl. She is here often. She plays [the piano] well. She and my three
biggest girls play tennis together and are great chums. Mrs. Wells is so glad to have Virginia
here with us as often as she can be for she needs companionship. Dr. Wells is just fine. I am
well now most of the time - only tired
God bless and keep you safe and well -
Lovingly,
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey)
Chungju, Korea
November 5, 1913
F.S. Miller
The Korean Church, in brief sketch
Four Presbyterian and two Methodist Missions are working in Korea bound together in a
Federal Council. While they are not yet able to build up one organization of the Korean
Christians, they have so far eliminated division as to be building up one Presbyterian and one
Methodist Church.
Under this Council there are 68,195 members, 47,175 catechumens, 64,997 additional
seekers after Truth. How many secret seekers there are, God alone knows. The catechumens are
people who have attended first for six months, at least, have been examined once, and placed in
classes to study the Bible and Catechism for six more months or a year before they are re-
examined, and perhaps baptized.
These Christians gave last year $108,156 gold. To appreciate what sacrifice and devotion
this means, you must remember that in Korea a farm hand earns only fifteen cents a day, so that
these gifts mean at least as much sacrifice as if an equal number of Christians at home gave
$1,081,360.
Comparing the number of Christians with the population (16,500,000), we find about one
in seventy is a Christian. This is after about twenty-five years of work. In some other countries
after fifty to one-hundred years of work, the proportion is one to seven-hundred.
The Koreans were a people peculiarly prepared to receive the Gospel, poor in spirit, meek,
peace-loving, some of them even hungering after righteousness. No strong religion withstood
Christianity, no caste system.
The missionaries made good use of this opportunity by preaching the Gospel all over the
country to the common people, aiming to start churches first, and let the churches start the schools
as the need was felt, and they were able to found and carry them on. They also adopted the policy
of founding a self-supporting, self-propagating, self-governing church. “Sell books at cost price -
do not give them, give no man foreign pay for Christian work in his own locality, pay for only one
assistant for each missionary out of foreign funds, let the Korean Church pay for its pastors and
teachers. Grant no funds for building churches, except in towns where the missionaries live, and
need large buildings to accommodate country Christians. Grant no money for schools except
central ones, or higher schools, or schools for girls. Turn over the care and government of the
church to the Koreans as rapidly as they are able to assume the burden.” This has been the policy
at least of the Presbyterian Missions.
Two aims have been before the missionaries; set the people to studying, set the people to
work. As a result, last year in the Northern Presbyterian Mission alone there were 1380 Sabbath
Schools attended by 66,000 pupils. The average church attendance was 73,000, so practically the
whole church attends Sabbath School. It required 57,000 Monthlys and 25,000 Quarterlies to
supply the classes. Besides, there were 1,055 Bible Study Classes or Conventions in this one
Mission, attended by 43,500 members, and extending from five to fifteen days. These are self-
supporting, the men and women walking several days, if necessary, carry food, - and perhaps
babies, too, in the case of the women.
One way of setting the people to work is to take up collections on days of evengelistic
11/5/1913 - p.2 F.S.M.
work, the Christians volunteering for from two days to two weeks. Another is to divide the
territory around each church in apple pie divisions, and to allot each division to several
volunteers. The greatest human agency in the building up of the Korean Church, has been the
volunteer work of the lay members.
Educational work has not been neglected, even though it has been placed second. In the
Northern Presbyterian Mission there are 488 schools, 450 of which are self-supporting. These are
attended by 1 1,213 pupils.
In the six Missions there are about eighteen hospitals; the eight in the above mentioned
Missions treated 72,000 patients the past year.
Last year 390 colporteurs and Bible women sold 245,219 portions of Scripture in all of
Korea. In Seoul a Y.M.C.A. of 987 members enjoys a handsome building given by Mr. John
Wanamaker [Philadelphia Christian businessman]. The chief needs of the work are more
missionaries to superintend the work and teach, more equipment for higher institutions of learning
and for hospitals, more prayer that the Spirit and Church may work mightily to turn the heathen to
Christ and salvation, all for the Glory of God.
F.S. Miller
(from the microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Reel #3, Series II, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #48)
NewYork, New York November 15,1913 unnamed interim, undoubtedly Orville Reed
answering for Dr. A.J. Brown
The Rev. Samuel A. Moffett, D.D.
Pyeng Yang, Korea
My dear Dr. Moffett:
In Dr. Brown’s absence at the Hague, I am acknowledging your letter of October 9‘\ We
note the list of regular furloughs and intermediate furloughs and dates in each case. Undoubtedly
you are right that the intermediate furloughs generally mean less injury to the work and better
health for the missionary.
In regard to the transfer of the Fusan territory to the Australians, the Board took action
November third, as you will see from the regular letter notifying the station. That action, I
understand, does not authorize as yet either transfer of missionaries or of property. In talking the
matter over with Dr. White, I find that this is also his clear understanding of the case. I am led to
say this by your sentence - “Mr. Herbert Blair transferred to Taiku will want to begin at once
preparations for his house in Taiku if this appropriation is transferred there.” I am sorry that Dr.
Brown is not present to answer your letter himself, because of the very great importance of the
matter under consideration.
The copies of the revised Rules and By-laws were duly received, for which please accept
our thanks. At your request, we are sending you, under separate cover, a copy of the Board’s
Cable Code Book and seventy-five copies of the Manual. Will you please see that each family
receives a copy of the Manual.
With yourself, we are disappointed at the Supreme Court’s decision, and cannot but yet
hope that there may be a reversal, although in talking with Mr. McCune, I understand that the
prisoners feel that this is a providential opening to preach the Gospel where it would not
otherwise be made known. Through all this great trial, Korea has had the most earnest prayers of
the Church at home.
With kindest regards.
Very cordially yours,
[unsigned, but almost certainly Orville Reed]
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series n. Reel # 3, Record Group 140-3-5, letter #59)
New York, New York
November 18, 1913
Orville Reed
To the Korea Mission.
Dear Friends:
It is with deep regret that we are obliged to announce the acceptance of the resignation of
Dr. and Mrs. W.O. Johnson. It is only because Dr. Johnson has become fully convinced that he
cannot regain his health sufficiently to return to the field. The Board deeply appreciates the years
of service which he has given in Korea and expresses its regret for this necessity of severing our
relation with him.
We sympathize warmly with the Mission in its loss of a beloved fellow-worker and hope
that ere long someone may be found to carry forward the work to which Dr. Johnson has devoted
so many years of his life.
Sincerely yours,
Orville Reed
Assistant Secretary
(from microfilm records of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society,
Philadelphia, Series n. Reel # 1, Record Group 140-2-1)
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN KOREA MISSION
OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
Pyongyang, Korea November 19, 1913 Samuel A. Moffett
Dear Dr. Brown;
I have just sent you two printed copies (bound) of the Minutes and Reports of the Twenty
Ninth Annual Meeting. I want to ask your attention to the following items in the Minutes, upon
which we desire action on the part of the Board. You may have taken action on some of them before
this reaches you but I enumerate all here so that none may be overlooked.
There are requests for Special Appropriations as follows:
Page 7, Sec. 4 for yearly grant of ¥1000 for assistance to Lower Schools. This was
communicated to you Dec. 27, 1912, but since no appropriation has yet been made, attention is again
called to it.
Page 19, Sec. 20 for our share Salary of Manager Tract Society. I have asked Tract Society
to send you information bearing on this.
Page 93, Sec. 1 1 for annual grant of ¥3000 for Japanese teachers in Higher Schools. Mr.
Adams was appointed to write you upon this subject.
Page 98, Sec. 13 for ¥2000 for Well Drilling Machine for Property Committee.
The request of the Australian Mission for our Fusan Station Territory and Work, and the action of
our Mission on the same;
Page 80, Sec. 8 (a),(b),(c),(d), records Mission final action. Page 18, Sec. 1, Page 22-23, and
Page 28-29 will show the nature of the discussion and the vote. See also my letters of Sept. 27“’ and
October 9* in which I wrote more fully upon this. Since then I have received a communication from
the Australian Mission stating their intention of setting apart a man for four months each year for the
Pyengyang Union College, irrespective of the question of their obtaining additional territory; that
they view with sympathy the proposal to unite in the Boys’ Academy, Taiku, but are not ready to
bind themselves as to time nor to decide at once as to nature and details of the union; that they
request their Board to guarantee our Board against loss on the original investment.
Miss Campbell’s resignation.
Page 20, Sec. 23. See my letter of Oct. 20“’.
Furloughs. Page 80, Sec. 5, Page 81, Sections 13 to 21, 23, 24. See my letter of Oct. 5“’.
Reinforcements for Manchuria. Page 81, Sec. 22. Bearing on this, please note Page 18, Sec. 2, Page
20, Sec. 21, Page 30, Evang. Com. report. Sec. A. and B. Page 31, Committee of the Whole. Page
3 1 , Committee of the Whole and Minority report. Page 40, Sec. 8. Page 47.
These will show that the territory is our responsibility, that the Mission was about equally divided as
to the relative importance of a man for Manchuria and a man to fill a vacancy in a station already
opened, and that the Mission considers this work in Manchuria of such importance that a special
communication is to be prepared and sent to you. Mr. Whittemore is now preparing the data for such
communication.
Kang-kei Station request for an Evangelistic Woman.
Page 69 Apportionment Committee Report.
Page 72
11/19/13 - p.2 S.A.M.
Page 73 Apportionment Committee Report.
This question caused us more discussion and more distress than any other. The need is
urgent. The Mission is eager to supply it. It seems impossible to take one from any other station
where the work would be made to suffer. Miss Butts’ sickness and Miss Best’s furlough as well as
other sufficient reasons made the Mission unwilling to send Miss Doriss there rather than to
Pyongyang. Please find someone soon for this Station.
Requests for New Workers. Page 82, Sec. 34.
Of these the first three Evangelistic Men, the first Evangelistic Woman, the first Educational
Man and the first two Educational Women are so urgently needed and their presence would so
greatly relieve the strain under which many are working that it will be economy to supply these
needs. Miss Plummer’s vacancy. Miss Heron’s vacancy, Mr. Renich’s vacancy, not to mention
others, are not yet filled.
Evangelistic Committee Report. Sections 7,8, and 9 require Board app-roval and action.
Page 90, Sec. 7. Seoul North Church Appropriation.
“ ” “ 8 Taiku Building for Young Men’s Work Appropriation.
“ ” “ 9 Taiku Bible Institute Balance Transfer.
Medical Committee Report. Sections 24 and 25 require Board action.
Page 97, Sec. 24 to secure permission from Mrs. John P. Duncan.
“ ” “ 25 Board to investigate as to policy of having separate funds for Medical work.
Property Committee Report Sections 3 to 13 require Board approval, action or appropriation.
Page 97, Sec. 3. Transfer Sariwon Rest House Funds.
“ ” “ 4. Donate Old Temporary Quarters, Chairyung.
“ 98, Sec. 5. Repair George Winn House, Property Docket No. 72.
“ ” “ 6. Remove thatched buildings Taiku.
“ ” “ 7. Pyengyang Gate House balance transfer.
“ ” “ 9. Alterations Pyeng Yang houses. Property Docket 42.
“ ” “ 8. Transfer Fusan Well Balance. Consider with Sec. 5.
“ ” “ 10. Sale Syenchun South Church Property.
“ ” “ 11. Remove Anak Rest House. (I am quite sure the sum involved is small,
probably ¥200 for site).
“ ” “ 12. Milyang House appropriation for Taiku.
“ ” “ 13. Well drilling machine. (Already mentioned above)
“ ” “ 15. Items 1 ,2,3 should receive special attention.
General Fiscal Committee Report Sections 3, 9 and 13 require Board action.
Page 102, Sec. 3. [language] teachers for Mr. Genso and Dr. Hirst.
“ 103, Sec. 9. Balances lapsed.
“ ” “13 Continuance of present grant for the Mission. Mr. Miller is now preparing
letter on this subject.
In addition to the above, I would ask you to note the following items, which however prob ably
require no specific action: -
Page 14-15 and 55-59. Language Committee report.
“ 15 New Rules and By-Laws. (Copies have been sent you.)
“ 1 8, Sec. 6 Provision for Field Advisory Committee for Edinburgh Conference Continuation
Committee.
“ 20, Sec. 22 Dr. T.A. Mills’ Leave of Absence.
11/19/13 - p.3 S.A.M.
“ 44, Sec. 1 and 4 Language Class travel expense and Native Church Property.
Page 62. Medical Committee. Nurses and Deaconesses.
“ 65-67 Statistician’s report.
“ 74 Delegate to General Assembly 1914 - Rev. George S. McCune.
“ 80, Sec. 1,3,4,6,7,11,27.
‘ 95, “ 10 { Assignments & transfers
Page 92, Sec. 23, Page 93, Sec. 10, Page 94, Sec. 13, and Page 95, Sec. 15. These show the call for
new workers. The request to the Southern Presbyterians is in view of Miss Snook’s urgent need of
help.
Page 91, Sec. 21. Pierson Memorial Bible School.
“ 93, Sec. 17-18. Union Medical Plant, Pyengyang.
Trusting that the Board may be guided in making provision for the many needs of the many fields,
and with most cordial greetings.
Very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman, Executive Committee
I am sending two copies of this - one by San Francisco, one by Siberia. Will Jim McCullough please
note which arrives first and let me know?
S.A.M.
(photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyengyang, Korea Nov. 22, 1913 [excerpts] Belle S. Luckett
Dear sweet Jamie boy -
We have a sweet merry crowd here today. One at a time the children go to the
bathroom for the bath. Did 1 tell you we have a little room attached to our hallway with a tin tub
with a hole in the bottom of it in which is a tube to carry the water through the wall to the tub
sunken in the ground outside There is a big wooden stopper in this tub. The bath towels
hang along in a row - each child brought towels of all kinds and sheets, blankets, spreads,
comforts and wash rags. Last night being Friday was the evening for our frolic. We had invited
the whole school to come to a radioptican show. We showed my Washington pictures. I had the
servants pop a lot of com with salt and butter and make a lot of sugary cookies. Then we had
apples and fortunately that very afternoon a box of gum drops came to me from Lucy! Some of
the children had never tasted a gum drop! One boy asked me if they were “gun drops!” They
were in a tin box and came in fine shape. They were the long kind and just delicious and so
pretty. The children were delighted to get it
As two of our girls had been invited out to tea and as I was also to go out to a dinner
party the other children asked to have their two favorites to eat with them, Virginia Wells - our
one young lady - and of course the boys asked for their chum and friend, our good old bachelor.
When I got home from the dinner we had our show with the radioptican. Mr. McMurtrie always
mns the machine for all, and enjoys it as much as any of us. We have so many funny things
happen here among these children. The other day some question arose at the table about gender.
One or two of the older children are studying language - so Bruce, our irrepressible Bruce
[Hunt], wanted to know what gender he belonged to. And after being told he went shouting
around, “I’m masculine gender! I’m masculine gender!” - and some of the children told me he
ran down to the school and told everyone what gender he was! He is so natural and sweet - 1 am
so fond of him though I am always saying, “There, Bruce”, or “now Bruce!” You just can’t get
old here with so much young life and spirits all about you. Last night as a closing exercise to our
party the children sang “America”. They sang it with so much spirit it always makes me want to
shed tears. They certainly are a sweet lot
We have a large field out here enclosed by a wire fence. The field covers an acre - it is
the school field to be used for sports - but all the folks pasture horses and cows there and spoil
the nice sod and make it dangerous even to throw balls as they are always afraid of hitting one or
more animals. I feel that our boys and girls need all sorts of outdoor things and yesterday as Dr.
Moffett was calling at the house - and as he is President of the School Committee and I am
Principal of the school, we planned to fix up this field with a running track, a diamond, perhaps a
swimming pool and a place to jump. If you know of some good things used in American
playgrounds I wish you’d suggest them. And if anyone wants to help out with a football and
baseball things they would be appreciated. Out here those things cost a lot. A football costs $4
gold, etc. Did I tell you about our Chinese grocer writing me a note to know “What the base ball
use for?” so he could quote prices for me? The Japanese have a device in their playgrounds that
is fun. It is a heavy log swung between two iron braces— and it swings back and forth as the
children walk over it. It is lots of fun. I think we will work it so that there shall be some good
place for these children to get the out-of-doors they need
Devotedly,
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J.)
San Francisco, California
December 13, 1912
Will C. Wallace
Mrs. Charles H. Fish, San Rafael, California
Dear Madam: I enclose one of this Company’s printed prospectuses, which will give you a good
idea of the location and nature of the property we own. At present the mine is shut down and in
care of a watchman for the winter, but we are endeavoring to secure additional capital for a renewal
of operations at an early day. The Company has invested over $300,000 and has what is probably
the largest and best property in the state; at any rate, one of the largest and best.
Concerning your husband’s certificate of stock, which is missing. I would suggest that
perhaps it may have been placed in the safe at the Consolidated Virginia Company [of which
Charles Fish was President] at some time, and Mr. Havens [his administrative partner] may be able
to find it. I will bring the matter before the next meeting of our Directors, however, and I have no
doubt that they will authorize the issuance of a new certificate.
If you find the old one, please let me know.
Yours Sincerely,
Will C. Wallace,
Secretary
(from the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original letter
together with the printed prospectus referred to are in the S.A.M. papers)
Pyengyang, Korea
To the Mission: Dear Friends:
December 16, 1913
Samuel A. Moffett
The Executive Committee met in Seoul Dec. 3-4, and passed the following Recommendations,
which are herewith sent to you for a vote on the same.
Recommendation No. 3 1 .—
That Andong Station be given permission to sell one of the Korean buildings formerly used for
temporary quarters, and apply the proceeds to fitting up the other building for the Church Boys’
School.
Recommendation No. 32:—
That the Board be requested to insert in the financial budget for 1914-15, the traveling
expenses of Benjamin N. Adams to America.
Recommendation No. 33:—
That the item of Yen 575 for well for Chairyung be made an emergency item, and the Board be
requested to appropriate for the same. (This is in view of the Property Committee’s investigation and
decision that the project for securing a drilling machine is not feasible, Chairyung had expected to
secure a well as soon as this machine was appropriated for. Their supply of water from their two wells
is short and a water famine threatens them. This item becomes an emergency item).
Recommendation No. 34:—
That in case the transfer of the work in South Kyeng Sang Province be made, whatever
Hospital Equipment may be in the Fusan Hospital be transferred to the Taiku Hospital.
Recommendation No. 35:—
That, in accord with the request of Pyengyang Station, the Board be requested to permit the
employment of Miss Campbell from the date of her resignation to the end of the fiscal year for half
time in the Industrial Dept, of the Women’s Academy in Pyengyang, it being understood that contract
is not binding on either party if opportunity arises for other permanent arrangement for either.
Recommendation No. 36:—
That our members in Presbytery seek to introduce in such presbyteries as are in need of it,
some system of meeting the expenses of theological students by collections from the churches. (This
refers primarily at least to traveling expenses.)
Recommendation No. 37:—
Whereas the Church in Korea has its own courts separate from the Church in America, and.
Whereas the Korean Church provides the expenses of all Korean delegates, so that the question of
provision for the expense of missionary delegates can in no case raise the question of that for Koreans,
and Whereas, the relation of foreign missionaries to these courts is only temporary, and by virtue of
their nurturing missionary relation is only temporary, and. Whereas we believe that attendance on these
courts is as yet a necessary and very important part of our itinerating work in the establishment of the
Church, Resolved, that we consider that these constitute conditions not contemplated in the general
Board Manual rule and that each Station may consider travel expense of its members to Presbytery and
General Assembly as a proper charge on the Station’s appropriation for itinerating expenses.
Recommendation No. 38:—
That the Chairman of the Committee and the Treasurer of the Mission be instructed to secure a
copy of the law of incorporation for foreign companies; and in general to ascertain the necessary steps
for the forming of such a company.
Recommendation No. 39:—
That when the facts concerning steps necessary for incorporation are ascertained, the Executive
Committee be empowered to select the Trustees to form such a body for the holding of Board property
in Korea, making the Mission Treasurer the secretary and treasurer of the same, and to take the
necessary steps to organize and apply for incorporation.
Recommendation No. 40:—
That, in the event of the Mission to Lepers being willing to start work in Taiku and to maintain
all the expenses of the same, the Mission undertake to supply the Superintendency of it by our
12/16/13 - p.2 S.A.M.
physician located there.
Recommendation No. 41;—
That the question of a site for the work of the Mission to Lepers in Taiku be referred to Taiku
Station to report to the Mission.
Recommendation No. 42:—
That Dr. Adams be appointed Fraternal Delegate from our Mission to the Japan Mission at its
Annual Meeting, with Dr. Clark as alternate.
Recommendation No. 43;-
That Mr. Whittemore be requested to attend the Annual Meeting of the Scottish Manchurian
Mission and represent to them the matter of establishing a joint Station at Tong Hwa Hyun.
Recommendation No. 44:-
The following two recommendations were adopted and are transmitted herewith for the
information of the Mission.
Recommendation A20:—
That the Chairman be requested to get an inventory of the equipment in the Fusan Girls’
School, and that he also ascertain any desire which may have been expressed by donors as to the
disposal of their gifts, and what those gifts were.
Recommendation A2 1 :—
That the Chairman be instructed to reply to the Australian Mission’s Communication
concerning transfer in South Kyeng Sang Province, stating the Committee’s disappointment as to their
proposition and asking if this is to be considered their final attitude in the matter.
The Chairman reported to the Committee concerning the replies received from the married
women as to their attitude towards the question of “Votes for Married Women”. The returns are as
follows: Blanks were sent to 44 married women in Korea and to 5 in America, all the married women
of the Mission. Replies have been received from all the 44, but as yet none from America. Replies to
question referring to voting at Annual Meeting on Women’s work are “Yes” 9, “No” 35. Replies to
Question II referring to voting in Stations on women’s work are “Yes” 23, “No” 21, one of the latter
with a comment
Replies to Question III referring to full suffrage in the Mission are “Yes”, 1, with the comment:
“if it was on a question I understood thoroughly and if I did not I could refrain from voting”. “No” 41,
Blank, 2. The two blank votes are accompanied with the following comments;- “I cannot answer
question III categorically until it is made clear whether the proposed suffrage is to be a privilege to be
used at will or an obligation, the discharge of which is compulsory.” The other, - “Full suffrage or
none at all, no discrimination.” This, with the replies from those in America when received, will be
reported to the Committee on Rules and By-laws.
Board Letter No. 181 dealing with the Fusan Question was not received until after Ex. Com. meeting,
that mail having been delayed. I am writing the Chairman of the Property Committee to prepare for the
Board a statement of Fusan properties as requested.
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.
Very Sincerely,
Samuel A. Moffett
Chairman Executive Committee
(photo-copy in the Samuel Hugh Moffett collection of Samuel Austin Moffett papers. Original in the
collections of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Pyongyang, Korea
December 28, 1913[excerpts]
Belle S. Luckett
Dear Boy,
I had so many engagements to dinners and parties I could hardly keep track of
them. There was a big “children’s party” to which all children and parents in the community
(Foreign) were invited. It was a lovely affair at the Holdcrofts. They are newly married, about
four years ago, and just the loveliest, dearest people. They are special friends of mine I spent
some of Christmas day with the Mowrys, they are so sweet to me
I had the pleasure of doing a little Christmas giving here. Dr. Wells told me of some
poor Koreans in the hospital so I sent a lot of guild pictures and a big orange, each, to them.
Then there are two or three ladies here, guests and strangers, to whom I sent pretty bowls in
which were planted the lily bulbs you see in Chinese stores. We get them here. I have several
around in the rooms. They will bloom before long. Then Mr. Mowry has ten school boys from
far-off Korean villages, they are very poor, hardly have enough to eat. He has been keeping
them in school here and wanted to give them a treat. The “treat” was a good bag of rice and an
orange each. He let me help pay for that treat. And dear, he was keeping these boys in school
with the money a Sunday School in America sent to him and now they have failed to send it and
he feels he is almost unable to do it - so I told him I would give him half that money you are
sending each month, which amounts to ¥2 (yen). He was delighted and I know it could not go
for a better purpose than toward the education of these promising boys. I told Miss Fish about it
and she wants to help, too, so between us we can relieve Mr. Mowry and keep the boys in
school. The other ¥2 of your money I am giving each month to Mrs. Bemheisel for the little
Korean kindergarten. Oh, you would just love these little chubby baby Korean children - they
are so sweet and shy and so bright
Yesterday afternoon the station - that is all the Presbyterian missionaries in Pyengyang
had a business meeting here. They met at 4 o’clock and at six I gave them a dinner. I had six
tables, mostly round ones, some of my own, some belonging to others — for every one here
expects everyone else to use his things. Then there are dishes and silver for “Community” use. I
put my nice embroideries on the tables and in the center of each laid some beautiful fern leaves I
got here. The room was decorated with ferns and pine and the laurel leaves we can buy in
bunches here at the little Korean stores where they sell hardware and walnuts. The house was
very pretty and attractive with lamps and nice and warm. We own about twelve rocking chairs
and a comer seat and a couch and some big chairs so our company was comfortably seated.
There were twenty five in all. Virginia Wells, our only young lady and Richard Baird, our sweet
sixteen-year-old boy and my servant, Yi-si, and I did the serving. All the servants were doing
their best to make it nice.
First we passed forks and knives and napkins, then dinner plates were brought in on each
of which were two patties filled with creamed chicken, 2 rice croquettes and a generous helping
of Saratoga chips. Then came the bread and butter plates with a roll of butter and some lovely
celery and two hot biscuits, on each. Following that came olives and grape conserve - (you
know how good it is) - after they had eaten that and plates cleared we brought on salad made of
apples, pineapple (canned), raisins, figs, dates, oranges and English walnuts with a lemon
dressing and on the top a little pile of whipped cream. We can “whip” some of our canned
cream. With the salad we had crackers on which I had toasted cheese - My, it was good! Then
after salad we had a fruit gelatine of all sorts of good stuff, and just delicious vanilla ice cream
that I made myself (or at least mixed it - and the man froze it}. It was made of pure canned
cream and was fine, if I do say it, as I oughtn’t, and devil’s food cake! Then there were dishes of
12/28/13 -p.2 B.S.L.
salted peanuts and my lovely American candy for each table, with which they drank grape juice
with oranges and lemons in it - and coffee and tea and cocoa! Now wasn’t that a feast! Oh,
wouldn’t I have been happy to have had Ml [her two sons, the wife of one and fiancee of the
other] there to enjoy it! The folks just couldn’t get over it - the men, especially. Dr. Wells said
he never ate so much good stuff in his life. They voted all sorts of things about me - 1 wanted to
show them what a really good American dinner could be like. They said, “You must have done
most of this - no Korean cook could do these things’’. Of course 1 did do a lot of it, as my tired
back proved, but it was worth it. I was delighted to think 1 could get such lots of good things
together and I wanted to entertain these people who have every one of them entertained me, over
and over.
They were all so amazed that 1 could get on so well without the language with my
servants - but necessity will do a lot for you in that line. 1 am sending in this a picture of our
home that an American visitor took. It is all we have. I want everyone to see it. It gives you a
good idea of the missionary houses here. This house and many of them are built of mud and
stones and com stalks, just like other Korean houses. Only the very well-to-do Koreans ever
have the tiled roof like this. The roofs are always the rice straw as a thatch and no windows or
only a bit of a square covered with paper. Sometimes I see a little piece of glass, half the size of
your hand, stuck into the paper to make a peep hole.
In front of my room (which faces south) is the lawn where the boys and girls play ball.
There are lots of roses and plants everywhere about. This was the first missionary home built in
Pyengyang, [for the Graham Lee family]. Now they build the homes for the missionaries
of brick with the tiled roof The rooms marked “guest rooms” (which most missionary houses
have) have been tom away and right there is where the new school dormitory is now in process
of building
My [dormitory] children are all happy with their Christmas in their homes. They write
me almost every day, just dear letters.
God bless you richly -
Mother
(Belle Luckett letters, archives, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ)
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